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#spring cleaning time! this was at the bottom of my drafts
sixty-silver-wishes · 7 months
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Excerpt from the current draft of my novel, “Counterclockwise”
For anyone living on the outskirts of Rustvale, the Copperflame Lukas was an absolute necessity. Not only could the robot identify over five hundred different metallic substances; the Lukas was programmed to assemble lesser machines from blueprints downloaded into its code, detect valuable materials among piles of discarded scrap, and was equipped with an internal navigation system, allowing it to trek for miles without rest to places humans couldn’t journey to without needing days’ worth of food and water. Like all machines, the Lukas was built to serve humanity, putting an end to the days in which people had no choice but to scavenge for hours in piles of rusted metal for discarded parts, not to mention having to sift for the most valuable ones amid fears of infection or exhaustion. Civilization, perhaps, had advanced with the creation of the Copperflame Lukas- particularly in Rustvale, a city that had been built on the backs of more machines than men.
Oliver Kitt and his daughter Cecilia were a prime example of those such people who depended on the Lukas. It was evident in the tools they worked with, which the robot had been programmed to construct, the way they carried themselves whenever they went into town, and the way they rested easily every night, knowing they had the means to confidently assert that despite the modest conditions of their ramshackle bungalow, they knew where their next meal was coming from. The Lukas was a provider, bringing in their income along with the scraps and materials it returned home with every night, and in return, the Kitts maintained its gears and springs, allowing it to function for as long as it possibly could before the inevitable day where it would be gathered up and disassembled by the next, newer model of Lukas, of which Copperflame was already designing prototypes.
At the bottom of Oliver Kitt’s toolbox, underneath a mess of wrenches and screwdrivers, was an instruction manual, the same that had come with every Copperflame Lukas, although the manual had been updated with every new model. Each page of the manual contained some useful tidbit on the care and keeping of the robot- how to properly clean its rivets, or to program new information within its coding. Oliver Kitt would sometimes take this manual out of the toolbox and read it after dinner, smoking his pipe and basking in the reliability this manual contained, how it secured his very livelihood with its clear, practical technicalities. He had no need for newspapers, with their constantly-changing headlines that always concerned things he had no say in; the Lukas manual, by contrast, was as dependable as the machine it was written about, and a healthy reminder that the means of his livelihood were always under his control, unlike so many other things in his life had been.
“No matter how far its navigation system may lead it,” Oliver Kitt read aloud one evening as he sat in his rocking chair, reading the manual as he so often did, “your Copperflame Lukas will always be able to find its way home. That’s always reassuring, isn’t it, Cecilia?”
“Speaking of that,” his daughter said, looking up from tinkering with something at her worktable, the one the Lukas had constructed for her shortly after they had first activated it. She took her pocket watch from her breast pocket. “It’s getting late. It should be back by now, shouldn’t it?” She adjusted the strap that held her magnifying goggles atop her nose, allowing her a closer look at what she was working with, positioning the crook of her arm over the shapeless mass as to prevent her father from craning over her shoulder while she was working, as he had a habit of doing.
“What time is it?” Mr. Kitt asked.
“Seven fifteen. I believe we programmed it to be back by seven.”
“Are you sure? It’s-”
As if on cue, a bell rang outside their door, and Mr. Kitt opened it to see the very contraption they had been talking about. The rusted automaton, hardly the latest model but still diligent enough to avoid becoming scrap for at least another five years, stood in the doorway, its bronze shoulders weighed down by the sack that it was always handed before lumbering off to the scrapyards. Many years of scrapping had meant the robot’s structure had started to warp and bend out of shape, but it somehow remained capable of carrying almost as much as it had when it left the assembly line.
“It’s here,” Mr. Kitt called to Cecilia.
“Oh, good,” she answered, and went back to her work.
Mr. Kitt turned back to the robot. “Lukas,” he said, addressing it by the command word that allowed it to respond to his voice, “sort the haul from the scrapyards.”
“Sorting will commence,” the Lukas responded in its tinny, slightly warped voice. Copperflame wasn’t known for its voice box technology, and while the Lukas was equipped with many advancements for its time, its scratchy tone wasn’t one of them. “Ten kilos of low-grade iron, point-five meters of copper wiring, two kilograms of platinum alloy…” the Lukas droned, emptying the contents of its sack onto the ground before carefully arranging them by material and size.
“Only point-five meters of copper?” Cecilia asked, pulling her magnifying goggles on top of her head. “Of what quality?”
“Point-five meters of copper wiring of average quality,” the Lukas responded. “Can be extracted from damaged Copperflame Athena circuit boards.”
“What about the rest of the Athena?” Cecilia pressed. “Any data storage units?” While the Athena was an obsolete model, retired five years ago, it was still prized among scrap collectors for the mechanisms that allowed it to store and retain information, designed to hold more than any other Copperflame automaton until its replacement, the Sage, had come along. Sages hardly appeared in scrap piles, and the memory drives of Athenas, despite their lower quality, were much easier to wipe and transfer into other Copperflame products. Even if the Kitts had no use for an Athena storage unit for themselves, it would certainly fetch a decent price on the market- much more than a bit of copper wire could.
“No other components of the Copperflame Athena have been detected,” the Lukas answered.
Mr. Kitt lit his pipe. “Looks like we have competition, then. The other scrappers must be catching up to us; chances are, everything useful in that scrapyard has been salvaged, sold, and melted down before our Lukas can get to it. We should have known this would happen, especially around this time of year.” He took a long draw from the pipe, the smoke curling up into the rafters above them, bringing with it the faint scent of tobacco and cedar.
“The time of year has nothing to do with it; it was bound to happen sooner or later, you know,” Cecilia pointed out. “I’m willing to bet pretty much everyone in Rustvale has better Copperflames than we do; our Lukas has got to be at least ten years old by now. It’s severely outdated, and the new model Copperflame just announced has some significant upgrades- it can polish metals itself, appraise not just the quality, but also the prices of the materials it collects, has a far more sensitive detector, and-” she added pointedly- “a voice box that doesn’t make you want to tear your ears off every time it speaks-”
“We’re not replacing our Lukas until it breaks down,” Mr. Kitt interrupted. “You know we need to save money, and ours works just as well as any other machine out there. We just need to start sending it out earlier and make it work longer; the other scrappers won’t be able to take the parts we need if we get there in time first.”
“Soon enough, the other scrappers will have automatons with built-in weapons to sabotage models like ours,” Cecilia fired back, standing up from her desk. “Rumor has it they’re already selling on the black market; it’s only a matter of time before Copperflame decides it’s a big enough issue to release bots with heightened defense systems, or else they’ll have a lot of unsatisfied customers. Either we get an upgraded Lukas, or we modify this one, and I can’t modify it if I’m not getting the parts I need. So therefore, I say upgrading it is the only logical conclusion, unless you don’t want a Lukas at all. And what does that mean for our family- or should I say, what’s left of it? The Lukas isn’t the only thing here that’s just barely holding itself together, you know.”
“Cecilia,” Mr. Kitt said, the harshness in his tone rising, “you’re not going to bring that up. And furthermore, for the last time, we’re not modifying the Lukas. I told you; it’s fine as it is. You remember the last time you tried to upgrade it.”
Cecilia gasped. “I was a child,” she said. “I’m far more careful now.”
“I won’t hear of it,” Mr. Kitt decided. “We can’t risk getting the Lukas ruined. What do I always say about the Lukas?”
Cecilia pulled her goggles back on, returning to her desk. “We depend on it,” she muttered.
“And what does the instruction manual always say?”
“You’re seriously trying to parent me with the instruction manual for a robot?”
“Cecilia,” Mr. Kitt warned.
Cecilia gave a long sigh, one fist clenched around the pair of pliers she’d been holding. “The Lukas was built with reliability in mind.”
A cold animosity settled like a fog inside the little bungalow, the accumulating sense of quiet only interrupted by the Lukas’ tinny voice as it continued to sort the materials it had gathered. The Lukas, of course, had no idea what had just transpired, nor would it have cared to know if it had any awareness. Not that it had the capability to care, in any case; it simply did not occur to its manufacturers to equip it with such a trivial function as caring. It creaked on its rusted knees, the whirring and buzzing of its cooling fan especially loud against the silence that hung between Mr. Kitt and Cecilia. The piles of metal and glass and semiprecious stones were steadily growing larger and larger as the Lukas’ narrow fingers selected each one from the bag as it proceeded to list what sort of material each fragment was, along with its quality and size. It had no idea that it was the only thing holding the fragile familial relationship between the two humans together, or that Mr. Kitt was too ashamed to tell Cecilia why she had no mother, or that Cecilia resented her father for always dodging the question. The Lukas didn’t know how badly they needed its services, how the household would easily collapse without its tireless work. Its purpose concerned only scrap parts, and that was to be its only purpose until it rusted itself beyond usefulness and eventually broke down. Buzzing out the contents of its seemingly endless inventory, it continued to sort, completely oblivious to the fact that its fate was being discussed right in front of it.
When the Lukas was done sorting, as was the routine, Cecilia and Mr. Kitt carefully gathered each pile of materials, placing them into the drawers that lined one wall from floor to ceiling. Each drawer was labeled, with the ones for the largest materials on the bottom and the smallest materials on top, with some of them so full that they could barely close, and others containing only dust and the odd dead insect. Stacked haphazardly on top of one another, the drawers piled up to the ceiling, meaning the Kitts had to take turns using a stepping stool in order to reach the ones that were highest up, begrudgingly handing it between themselves without so much of a nod of acknowledgement. As angry as they were with each other, this task required cooperation. Cecilia refused to look her father in the eye when she took the stool from him, slamming a drawer shut with an audible thud after depositing a handful of screws in it. Mr. Kitt kept his back to her as he untangled a clump of wires. Occasionally, whenever each came across something that was no use to them, they put it back into the Lukas’ sack for it to return to the scrapyards the next time it arrived there.
Once the sorting was done, and the grandfather clock in the corner of the room coughed out a spluttering chime, Cecilia finally condescended to glance at her father, taking a deep breath before opening her mouth to speak.
“Look, I guess I see your point. All I’m saying is-” she began.
Mr. Kitt interrupted her. “It’s not a matter of discussion,” he said. “The Lukas is staying as it is. When it breaks down, then we can talk about getting a new model, but we’re going to get our money’s worth out of this one. It works just fine; Copperflame is always trying to convince people they need the latest upgrade of this or that automaton, but their old Lukases were made to last. When all the newer models inevitably begin to malfunction in a matter of months, if not weeks, it’ll be our Lukas that brings their parts home from the scrapyards, do you understand?”
Cecilia sighed. “Sure,” she said. “If it gets you to stop talking about it.”
Mr. Kitt shook his head, his eyes ringed with gray exhaustion. “Wash up for dinner,” he said. “I don’t want you working at your desk for too long; you forget to eat sometimes, and those goggles strain your eyes. I’ve already told you how I feel about you wearing them.”
“They’re fine,” Cecilia insisted, “and besides, they used to be yours, anyway.” Nevertheless, she got up from her desk, removing the goggles and dropping them on her desk. She paused before walking past the Lukas, examining the rust that gathered on its dull metallic body. She picked up its hand, wincing as its joints creaked, and turned back towards the drawers of parts from the scrapyard, opening one at eye-level, which was filled with nothing but spindly bronze digits.
“Cecilia,” Mr. Kitt warned.
She sighed, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and left the workroom. Mr. Kitt followed after her, leaving the Lukas standing amid the stacks of drawers and heaps of sawdust, its yellow eyes staring blankly at the mess that surrounded it, sheets of Cecilia’s sketches and stacks of overflowing toolboxes piled about its muddied feet. The Kitts, preoccupied by the stress that occupied their brains, had forgotten to power the Lukas off, but without any sort of command, it could do nothing but wait for them to return, even as its battery continued to drain.
The Lukas, at least, did not feel tired; it was not programmed to. Even if it had the capability to complain, as far as it knew, it had no reason to. Its thermometers read that the temperature in the workroom was cold- only three degrees Celsius, in fact- but this caused it no discomfort. It was true, the Lukas was not supposed to be kept for long in cold environments according to the instruction manual that Mr. Kitt so loved to read, and its worn metal legs would ultimately be slowed on the way to the scrapyards the following day, but it wasn’t bothered by this. If the Lukas had, for some inexplicable reason, been manufactured at the Copperflame factories with the capability to be bothered, bothered wouldn’t begin to describe what it would have been feeling. It would have been exhausted after spending all day at the scrapyards gathering parts that, as its artificial intelligence told it, were mostly worthless, and indignant at Mr. Kitt and Cecilia’s dissatisfaction at what it had brought back, despite the fact that it had salvaged all it could to the best of its ability, and bored of sorting through piles of worthless material, and furious that Mr. Kitt and Cecilia would think to openly discuss replacing it while it stood there working for them, and aggravated by their constant squabbling, and devastated that they would leave for the warmth of their tiny kitchen, leaving the Lukas to the mercy of the elements in the thinly-walled workroom.
It was, in a word, understandable, that Copperflame decided not to give the Lukas the option of being bothered.
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roosterbruiser · 1 year
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WHAT HAPPENED AT THE SPRING MILLIE????????????
You got me like
https://youtube.com/shorts/oyteDl2icYY?feature=share
well....I'll tell you what happened at the spring.......
I'm highly about to NOURISH all of you!! but a few things o note before I post this!!
this is from a draft where I was writing in Jake's perspective
the prologue hadn't happened yet
Filly = Sookie
Eliza = Ruth
I stopped writing in his perspective bc I felt like a creeper!!
 Silver Spring is the only place in Silverkeep that could be considered nice objectively. It’s uncharacteristically pretty for Silverkeep--the kind of pretty that almost makes me feel guilty, like if I touched the Mona Lisa or sneezed on The Thinker. Maybe because it is so beautiful--that sticky, guilt-inducing kind of beautiful--that no one ventures down this way. We are almost always alone here, save for a few reckless middle schoolers that are easy to scare away and some drifters who mind their own.
The black cherry trees and American sycamores are thick here, sprawling across the hills and thinning only when the St. Augustine grass rolls to a sudden stop at the edge of the spring. There are patches of thistles and black-eyed Susan’s spanning across all this fertile land--it always smells sweet here. 
Jagged, brown rocks climb out of the green water and up the hillside--there’s a lip where we sometimes jump off. There’s a pipe, a big ugly and dirty thing, that acts as some sort of man made waterfall. Rock rose plants are starting to cover the pipe now--it’s been here for a long time. 
The water never gets very warm--there’s too much shade. But on days like today, days when the only solace is being neck-deep in a bath of ice, that’s mighty fine. The spring is not very deep, either--only nine feet at the very center. Hyde was the one that figured it out, diving into the murky water with a measly stick as his measurement gauge. 
Our caps and gowns are sitting in a sweaty, crumpled heap on a patch of blue sage. Bees are bumbling around the polyester, probably swarming around Sookie’s because of that sticky orange scent. None of our nice dress clothes are folded, shoes and socks and dresses and pants strewn about haphazardly. Crushed cans of Pabst are gathering in a small aluminum pile on the embankment. 
I’m getting drunk--not out-of-my-mind drunk, not ditzy drunk. But I’m more than tipsy and less than shitfaced. Everything feels quieter now, my body submerged in the cool water, my feet squishing in the dirt and moss at the bottom of the spring. The beer is sitting at the bottom of my belly the way I like it to--makes me feel warm and full. 
We’re soaked to the bone, every one of us. And everyone’s getting drunk, dipping under the surface and holding their beer can just above their heads. 
Sookie is close to me, just a few feet, just a few moments worth of wading away. She’s floating on her back beside me, face tipped towards the canopy of trees, eyes slacked. She’s grazing the rippling surface of the water with her nailless finger gingerly. She’s just in that pair of cotton underwear and a measly yellow bra now. I’ve seen her like this more times than I can count, I think. None of us ever bring our swimsuits so we’re always in our underwear, which is why I know that Hyde still wears tighty-whitey’s and Eliza wears underwear with the days of the week on them.
“Gonna see Emma this summer?” Avery asks from beside me, taking a final swig from his beer can before lazily tossing it aside. 
He means: are you gonna fuck Emmaline Odette anymore this summer?
“Nah,” I tell him, “she got a boyfriend now.”
I’m being honest: Emmaline Odette does have a boyfriend now, some college boy from Austin that can get her into bars. If she didn’t, we would probably not have sex again, though. She’s a prissy little thing--her nails are always clean and her hair is always combed. Having sex with her felt like taking a shower; I was cleaner after. When I was around her, breathing in that expensive hand lotion and kissing her lacy underwear, my chest ached. I always felt like what we had was fragile--like she’d come to, look down, and realize some mutt was eating her out. 
“Heard she was pretty heartbroken over the likes of your sorry ass,” Eliza calls from her spot on the muddy banks, lying on her belly and kicking dirty feet up behind her. 
I tried to end things nicely with Emma--but she’d started crying and kissing on me and pulling my zipper down. We almost had sex again right there on her front porch. But then I looked around at the pillows that were bought solely to keep outside and the wicker furniture and the TV mounted on the wall and caught a whiff of whatever perfume she had on and felt that burn in my throat. I’d had to shrug her off, buckling my jeans, wiping my fingers on my shirt. 
“Look,” I’d told her as she stared up at me red-cheeked and wide-eyed, “I just don’t like you like that, okay?”
I wasn’t trying to hurt her feelings when I said it--but I knew she’d keep trying if I didn’t say what I did. I figured she’d get pissed--push me off her porch or slap me across the face. Instead she just turned her cheek and bit her lip hard. I rode home adjusting myself in my pants that night, little white streaks hardening on my shirt that smelled like her clean arousal. 
“You are our resident heartbreaker, Jake,” Ruth sighs, climbing to sit beside Eliza on the banks, “someone’s gotta be.”
There’s that feeling now--sitting on my chest heavy as a mahogany tree. 
“I do what I can.” 
I don’t even know why I say it, but I do. It falls from my mouth, into the spring, then swims away like a water strider.
Sookie is gone--the water she was occupying vacant. There isn’t even a ripple; it’s just still and quiet. Hyde is rough-housing with Avery now, splashing each other. Eliza and Ruth are leaning back on their elbows and talking about something that’s making them blush. 
I almost call out for her--but then I feel the energy around me shift like it always does when she’s near. It’s like turning an old television on and basking in that staticky silence before the picture blinks on--knowing that it is on but having to strain for proof, a weird sort of blind faith. There’s a great settling that spreads all across my body, starting at my submerged chest and ending at my toes buried in the mud, when I feel her wet breaths on the back of my neck. 
“Freeze,” she whispers behind me, pressing her fingers into my back like they’re a loaded pistol, “this is a stand-up.”
I can hear her smiling--know that she’s biting her lips and that lipstick is probably on her teeth again. She sounds tipsy--but not drunk. 
Raising my hands in surrender, I turn so she can see my cheek. I can’t see her very well; she is just a blurry image of blue and yellow and olive and black. But there it is, there’s that smile and that gap between her teeth. 
“Please,” I whisper pitifully, “I have a family.”
She digs her fingers deeper into my back, those pink nails cutting my skin. 
“Get me a beer and no one gets hurt,” she says. She nudges me again, pushing me towards the dwindling case of beer on the embankment. “G’on now, boy.”
I take a step, bobbing in the water, but then whip around and lunge with utter abandon. She hardly has time to think, move, gasp before I’m pulling her under the water with me, wrapping my arms around her. She wraps her arms around me, too, pushing all the air out of her lungs so it races to the surface in fat bubbles.
We stay under there and I blink, trying to get a glimpse of her through the murk and curly tendrils of her hair--but I can only catch fragments of her body: her missing pink nail, the precious column of her throat, her belly button. But then I see it: her yellow bra, the flimsy thing, has been accidentally nudged aside and her left breast is exposed here beneath the surface of Silver Spring. 
Her breast is supple, the nipple pert, and her skin is goosed.
I think I can imagine what it would feel like on my tongue--her skin wet with the muddy spring water, metallic and dirty. Her nipple would be cold from the water when I wrapped my lips around it, when I let my palm fall on the skin of her right breast, the ditzy yellow fabric sopping and sticking to my flexed fingers. Maybe she would make a pretty noise--
All the blood in my body is rushing down, down, down before I can help it, before I can even think to close my eyes. 
Lorde help me. 
She seems to notice at the same time as me, thrashing herself to the surface while tugging the strap of her bra back up over her dainty shoulder. I come up just a moment after her, panting, running my hands over my face.
Baseball. Peanuts. Sweaty helmets. Wooden baseball bats. Cleats. Chewing tobacco.   
She’s already looking at me. All that makeup is melting off her face--black and blue and pink staining her skin like pretend bruises. Her eyes are wide, mouth parted just slightly. She’s trying to see if I saw, I know that she is.
I don’t lie to Sookie--I can’t lie to Sookie. So instead of saying anything, I grin. It seems to disarm her slightly because her lips twitch into a smile, too. 
“You look like a banshee,” I tell her.
She exhales. She was holding her breath before. 
“I am a banshee,” she tells me. 
She comes closer to me, so close that I can smell her yeasty breath. 
Shin guards. Home-plate. Dirt. Jock-straps. Catcher’s glove. Hotdogs. Mustard.
Before she can say another word to me, I catch her jaw in my left hand, holding it in place gently. She’s completely subdued, just blinking up at me with all that goopy mascara streaming down her face. And I know we aren’t alone right now, but I know that no one is watching us, too. I know we’re just drunk enough to kiss and then say that we were out of our mind’s the night before. But I won’t kiss her right now--not even now that all that Barbie-clit lipstick is smeared across her chin and cheeks. 
I wipe her face with a wet, flat palm. She lets me, bracing when I press down hard, letting her eyes slip shut when I wet my hand again. But then the banshee is gone and it’s just Sookie staring up at me. I like her exactly like this--with a naked face and wet hair and warm breath. 
“Someone oughta teach you how to put makeup on, Sookie-girl,” I whisper to her even though I don’t mean it at all.  
She grins. 
“You first, pretty boy,” she whispers. The cicadas are starting to sing their song.
I swallow hard--I can feel it on my palm every time she swallows.  
Baseballs. Mascots. Urinals. Nets. Curveballs. 
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tvrningout-a · 11 months
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ISSA MEME FROM A WHOLE BLOG AGO | @sozokami gets an old meme response!
i think the prompt was something like " your muse wipes my muse's tears. " i happened to think about this response today and went searching for it in the drafts of my old blog! at the time i started writing it, it got so long to the point that i had no idea how to end it, so i saved it for later... and then i went on hiatus and moved blogs asdf well, i hope you enjoy it, space! i couldn't just keep it to myself after re-reading it :' ) to anyone else reading, major spoilers lie ahead if you haven't read the entirety of the kny manga!
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     suma knew victory wouldn’t come cheap. she knew her family was lucky to have come out of the corps alive albeit a little roughed up. but they’re together nonetheless -- even as they wait for the sun to rise, even as they wait to hear news of muzan’s demise ( because suma refuses to think for a second that he’ll defeat the slayers this time ), the uzui family is together, and that is something of a miracle.
     the kami only have so many miracles to give.
     suma knew to expect heartbreak after the initial rush of triumph and relief, but there had been a part of her that remained hopeful that most of their comrades would come home banged up but breathing. she remembers an aunt once telling her hope breeds despair, that it is better to expect the worst than to be crushed by disappointment. as a kid, she thought it was a very pessimistic way to view the world and refused to take those words to heart. now, suma understands. 
     she cries a lot during the weeks following muzan’s defeat, and the retired kunoichi feels guilty each time because the others keep themselves together much better than suma can. they don’t ignore their grief, of course, and they all share their regrets ( words they should have told someone, a trip they promised another but never did get around to, missed opportunities they can never get back ), yet suma wonders if consoling her doesn’t become a little taxing. she’s always felt so deeply -- it isn’t easy to stop the tears once they start, nor is it easy to hold them back. to console her when they’ve all lost their friends... well, isn’t it a little unfair to her spouses?
      so suma tries to keep her tears to herself, at least for a little while, until she doesn’t feel so sad when hinatsuru makes sakura mochi or when she sees a butterfly in the garden. as it would turn out, though, suma isn’t very good at hiding things from her spouses. in fact, she’s horrible at it, and the only reason they leave her be for a time is to see if she simply needs to be alone. but it’s hard, and eventually tengen has enough of waiting. to suffer alone and in silence isn’t suma’s way at all.
     when he finds her, she’s holding a garden snake ( who would very well bite the kunoichi were it not for her careful grip of its head ) and openly weeping... but quietly. her bottom lip is caught between her teeth, looking rather red from the amount of pressure, and tengen calls her name only to startle suma bad enough that she loosens her hold on the snake.
     she has a new reason to cry then, as the moment it has a little leeway, the garden snake bites suma’s hand. 
     after a lot of wailing and careful prying of fangs out of flesh, suma sniffles as tengen carefully tends to her injury. she watches his large hand so delicately clean her wound, feeling warmth blossom in her chest that helps ease the pain. why was she holding a snake? he asks. because a bird was eyeing it, she replies. her husband hums and finishes wrapping a bandage around the bite.
     his magenta gaze rises to meet her eyes, soft yet firm when he finally asks, “ why were you crying, then? ”
     there’s no lying to him, and truth be told, suma really doesn’t want to. tears spring to her already puffy eyes. “...it made me think of iguro-san. ”
     tengen is already cupping her cheek when the tears fall. his thumb brushes away the traitorous drops as suma lets loose at last, crying and crying loudly. she misses everyone, she feels sorry for not spending more time with them ( she never even knew iguro-san’s favorite color! ), and she feels so sorry for being so much when her spouses are grieving, too. she’s sorry---
" i'm sorry i'm making it harder for you all! i'm sorry i'm always crying! " she hiccups, leaning into tengen's touch despite herself. her uninjured hand clutches at the material of his yukata, squeezes and squeezes as if that might make it all more bearable. " i wish i could be stronger, but i can't! "
please, don't hate her for it.
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kobblefort · 10 months
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Rushsly: Almost The Bottom
SPOILERS FOR ENDGAME CONTENT UNDER THE CUT.
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Two miners into the depths: Zhasrca Foldcounselled and Nucra Framegarnishes.
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Doors shut firmly behind them. I can't think of a worse omen than Nucra fondly remembering a conversation with his wife.
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Up on the surface, a single thief is spotted approaching the fortress. Why now?
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Cire Osokcat is caught by them as he heads out to dump some trash, but they breeze right past him... and he decides right then "I'm going to go fishing." Right after the drawbridge lever was pulled. I draft him into the military just so that I can specifically force him to move off the bridge in the vain hopes that he isn't caught in the mechanisms and lost.
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He ignores the order, but fortunately runs off the bridge to chase one of the ratfolk down. Like an idiot trying to beat a train through a crossing so he can get to Joe's Crab Shack but ironically being saved by having some kind of road rage incident. Did you have to do this now, Cire!?!?!? The bridge is up, the ratfolk who made it in are targeted, and the one outside the base will hopefully walk right into our traps any second now.
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The miners are literally still at work down at -116, cracking through gold vein after gold vein. The earth truly does run rich down here. Maybe this will all turn out completely fine. Maybe Rushsly will be the most grossly wealthy fort of all kobblekind.
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Due to the fact that no scouts ever survived to come back and tell the ratfolk "hey don't go into the big-ass animal den," one of the thieves walks straight into the animal den.
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It takes Ace Steel just a single swing to split one of the ratfolk's heads open.
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His compatriot can only give a few seconds more of chase before being literally chopped in half by the swordmaster Shycla Zhizorsa.
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The one who ran into the den is torn apart by the dogs before finally being finished off by a giant rattlesnake. The drawbridge is lowered once more so that the military might set upon the final thief.
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Though he tries to run home, possibly to give the advice of "we really need to stop fucking with Rushsly," Ace Steel is faster, angrier, deadlier. Chopping off his arm, smashing his nose, knocking out his teeth, before one stab in the leg from Sheslas Spurnspread's dagger leads him to just plain run out of blood. And just like that, it's time to clean up. A waste of time, but an amusing one. The poor bastards, our constant enemies, fated to never even know what's below the surface of our fort. They have no idea of what we're on the precipice of, they wouldn't understand if they did. In another world, I feel bad for them, have sympathy for their plight, maybe even like them; in this one, I just want them out of our way. Adamantite will be ours.
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But god damnit, the bastards are so fucking persistent!! Taking no heed of their scouts' inevitable demise, after however many fucking raids they've already sent and failed, they spring another ambush upon us.
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Susle, a potash maker (which is a job that actually matters in my fort for the first time since I started playing the game) is shot twice, once in the rib and once in the knee, but almost manages to evade his pursuer...
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until he decides not to run straight in through the trapped entrance, and instead try to flee out into the woods.
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By the time the kobbles start actually taking heed of the civilian alert, more of them are wounded. Ilzi Dwelltube, a clothier who must have been one of our newest arrivals, similarly just tried to run around between the trees instead of getting to safety just a few tiles away, and takes eight fucking bolts for his trouble before making it past where the ratfolk can pursue him.
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Susle tries to crawl to safety, fighting so hard, harder than any kobble ever should, but...
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It's no use. Susle does not live to see adamantite, and the ratfolk who took it from him just saunter around outside all self-satisfied over finally getting a single win over the kobbles. One of them wanders off, three more just kind of loiter.
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We get our first beast from the third cavern layer, but it's not like it can get in, nobody even goes near the fortifications that peer into the third cavern, who gives a shit. Well, the least we can do is put down the three fucking rat bastards that remain before they can dare to get home to their shit-encrusted little hole in the ground and brag, and so our own militia are sent out through the long trap tunnel to put them down.
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Arm cut open, head cut off.
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The crossbow bolts that are not outright parried are still effortlessly blocked, bouncing hopelessly off the kobbles' heavy steel armor. Another head lopped off. Go for a hat trick?
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Three heads. Yeah motherfucker. Hat trick. We'll do one big patrol of the entire map before sounding the all-clear and letting Susle be buried.
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After a quick sweep, there's no more rats in sight. The corpses will just be left out there in hopes of being understood as a warning: see how far their heads landed from their bodies? That could be you. But it hurts to see Susle go, and on the subject of hurting...
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Six scars now mark the poor clothier. He's fixed up well enough, but it's doubtless he'll be able to walk without a crutch again.
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Cire, the doctor who is still erroneously listed as "guard captain," fares a bit better, though there's never anything good about a skull fracture, just things that could be worse about a skull fracture. He prays to Tulrac Dungsgalls, the god of death, disease, and deformity. Hey I like some triple D's myself you know what I mean heh heh ohhh yeaaah sorry. Just trying to add some levity to the situation I guess. One has to wonder if it is Tulrac's influence that will win over this fortress, or Dasël's - the god of rain and rainbows. I fear we are headed for death, though it would be nice if we didn't.
Before you ask, I didn't leave the miners trapped in the shaft this whole time - right as the ambush kicked off, I let them out to hang back and sit on standby with some drinks and snacks. They say you should basically never fight a war on two fronts - I don't know who says that, maybe nobody actually says that because it's obvious, and it's actually just the sort of wisdom you get clued in on by absorbing all sorts of other wisdom and hearing all sorts of other things, I don't know. Because sometimes someone will be like "They say blah blah blah" but then nobody actually says blah blah blah, it's not like a quote from someone, it's literally just them putting "common sense" into words. And on that note I've always thought "common sense" was bullshit. "Common sense" just means you made an assumption that ended up being proven right, and people who talk a lot about how "nobody has anyone common sense" tend to actually just be making a bunch of assumptions and putting themselves into a feedback loop of thinking well my assumptions were right before so they're obviously going to be right this time too. And I mean it's not actually hard to see how people get like that anymore, because nowadays media and journalism and all that shit is more about validation than verification. And that goes for everyone on every part of the political spectrum, I probably get my brain blasted just as bad being a Mao-appreciating-but-otherwise-agnostic anarcho-communist as like, your average small-business-tyrant Fox News conservative does. There's hardly ever any real investigations, that shit doesn't make money and nobody wants to fucking hear it when you tell them that thing they thought was wrong, they just don't, nobody in the entire world likes that besides the very small percentage of people so deeply committed to science or competition or whatever else that they can literally just shove their ego out of the way, that's only like 3% of people and they're busy winning fucking Super Smash Bros. Melee tournaments or fucking around with electron microscopes. Another good way to blast your fucking ego out of here is with psychedelic drugs like acid or mushrooms but as a big fan of both I gotta say doing acid makes it very hard to write. Anyway
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Finally lifting Susle's lifeless body from the shade of a great citron tree, Ty Lovelyseduce finally carries him to his final resting place in a green glass coffin, just like the other kobbles we've lost. He will never see what comes next to Rushsly, whether riches or ruin, put suddenly to his final sleep just days before the world would change. But her thoughts as she lays him down are not of dread, fear, or pain. They're of optimism.
Adamantite is the perfect material: it can make near anything, from armor to clothes, from weapons to coins, light enough to dance in yet strong enough to protect - if the rumors are true, at least. And the promised days must be close, now, they have to be. Golden days of wealth and fame, where kobbles can live without fear of bolt or blade.
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The earth must surely relent soon.
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cmbookendquotes · 1 year
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*taptap* Is this thing on?
Hi everyone, it's been... a while. A lot longer than I had planned, actually. My apologies!
So, let's do a little housekeeping, because it's high time to get this blog back up and running. As it stands, there are 6.2k of you following this (thank you, from the bottom of my heart). We're in the middle of Evolution Season 1, with a renewal having just been announced. I also just now noticed that the quotes from 15x10 never posted. They've been sitting in my drafts for two years. That's only mildly embarrassing.
So this is what we're going to do. First, I'm finally going to post the 15x10 quotes, because it's insane that I never noticed, I am so sorry. After that, over the next several weeks, I'm going to load up the queue with every bookend quote from the show, starting with 1x01. This is simply so that I have enough time to finally watch the new season, as RL obligations have kept me from doing so (heck, I still don't have Paramount+, it's on the list, don't @ me). Once we catch up, the new quotes from Evolution will appear. I also will continue on with Season 2 and beyond as they air.
I hope everyone is enjoying the new season, I can't wait to join you! Thank you so very much for sticking around this long (or for joining us anew!). I'm planning to do some winter/spring cleaning soon, just give me a bit of time.
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goron-king-darunia · 2 years
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Annon-Guy: Sorry Darunia. I didn't know you're busy with Spring Cleaning. Than again, it is around that time. I'll be waiting.
It's fine! I've been making a lot of progress with cleaning but my online stuff is backing up. I keep just shunting things in drafts and forgetting to answer asks. I have a bunch of stuff to sell and get rid of too. Making progress little by little though! Gotta finish the mantle and some shelves and then work on the rest of this room. Also need to finish cleaning out the fridge. I got everything but the freezer and the bottom drawer and shelf done. Though Dad keeps saying we ought to get a new one instead of cleaning this one. If that's the case though, he should hurry up about that. After me cleaning most of it, we finally have clean and open space to store things, but if I quit now it will just get dirty again and stuff will keep molding because there's still goop from old spills on the bottom that I need to disassemble things to get to. So yeah... gotta figure out if we're finally getting a new fridge any time soon. But in the meantime I'm cleaning up lots of my old toys and stuff that have been stored in the family room for ages and then got buried under other junk. With what I'm getting rid of, I already have 3 new shelves to store lots of good stuff! It's nice seeing things nice and clean for once.
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in-your-walls · 3 years
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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), dir. Peter Jackson / War of the Foxes, Richard Siken / Edge of the City (1957), dir. Martin Ritt / Daily Bread, Ocean Vuong
@horaetio
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ratsoh-writes · 3 years
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What do their bedrooms/living areas look like? I'm going to use all 3 of my asks to request this for all of the boys if that's ok! ❤
Man, I’ve had this one in my secret notes for a good while now!
Undertale:
Both the tale brothers live in a nice little gated community. Their house is one of the smaller ones and has the same layout as the one in Snowdin. The house is pretty basic with some cozy throws and wall tapestries to spruce it up
Sans: his room actually has a proper bed and frame this time. The sheets and blankets are still bundled up in a pile on the floor though. Sans also has his homemade trashnado in the corner. There’s a desk on the wall adjacent to the door which has his laptop. And several folders stacked next to it. Other than a dresser, there’s literally nothing else in there. Sans doesn’t care much about stuff
Papyrus: his room has bright orange walls. He left the race car bed behind underground but has a race car blanket to make up for it. His walls are covered in superhero and comic posters. He also has a display case for some old figurines and his comic collection. Papyrus’ desk is one of those nice fancy drafting ones where he can adjust it to tilt upwards. He has a ship wheel attached to his door for some reason.
Underswap
The swap bros home is only a few blocks from the classic brothers neighborhood. The only thing basic about it is the cream walls. All the furniture and decorations are bright colors. The kitchen especially is real nice. The oven and stove are top notch, and the counters are filled with mason jars full of goodies.
Star: his room can blind a lesser man when you walk in. The walls are bright yellow, the bed (which is a bunk bed by the way) is neon orange. Galaxy posters decorate the wall. Besides the clashing colors, the furniture is pretty basic. Only the top bunk actually has a mattress. The bottom bunk is used as a storage shelf. He also has a shoe rack by his door
Honey: you can practically feel the nerdy aura as you enter his room. The first thing you see is a display case housing some neat figurines of characters from his favorite shows. He’s also got a pretty nice bookshelf on the opposite wall that’s nearly full. Honeys bed has a curtain around it for extra privacy with a nice little wall lamp above the pillows
Underfell
They have a home a little closer to the city center but still far enough to be considered suburbs. It’s a very sleek and modern house with white walls, tile floors and sleek black and metal furniture. The only thing that doesn’t fit the rest of the theme is this nasty old patched up sofa in the living room. The thing is absolutely hideous but is sooo comfy.
Red: his room has soft grey walls and smells like miter oil. Makes sense since one wall is just a long basic table covered in machine parts that red tinkers with in his down time. He actually doesn’t have a bed. Instead he sleeps on this giant leather bean bag. He likes it that way. There’s a few car posters decorating the walls
Edge: he obviously put a lot of thought into his rooms decorations. Everything is pretty black marble or a sleek white wood. His bed covers are blood red with a nice geometric designs on top in silver. He has a beautiful black desk with some pretty jars filled to the brim with nothing but novelty pens. If you looked in his desk drawers you would find notebooks and even more pens
Swapfell
They don’t own a house and instead live in a two bedroom one bath apartment on the third floor of one of lords complexes. The furniture is pretty minimalistic but very nice quality. Most decorations are metal
Mal: the first thing you’ll see in his room is a large wooden drawing desk where pencils and watercolors are neatly arranged on the side. There’s also a vanity with a light up mirror and a nice collection of makeup. Also a huge slanted hunters knife. He uses it to make sure his eyeliner is extra sharp.
Cash: his bedroom is the perfect definition of organized chaos. It looks messy but for cash, he knows exactly where every thing is. There’s a small tv in there with some old game consoles hooked up to it. The bed is never made.
Horrortale
Their home rests in a neighborhood bordering the forest of ebott. The houses there all have a lot more yard space than most houses in the city. The horrortale home is super cozy with lots of knit throws and pillows scattered around. The back patio has a little dog door and there’s a 50% chance of seeing a chicken walk through lol
Oak: his room is also pretty basic. The bed however has so many blankets. Like way more than any person should need. Oak is a blanket hoarder. There’s a lot of notebooks stacked on his wooden desk along with a file of patterned paper for scrapbooking.
Willow: his room has a raised bed with a cute little ladder on the side so that his dog can jump up. You can tell a lot of the furniture has been homemade or refurbished. The room is larger and in the middle is a circular stone table that’s stained with paint. It’s usually housing his latest craft
Underlust
They used to live in the same neighborhood as the classic brothers but have recently moved closer to the inner city because of work. Their home is still in the process of being unpacked mostly, but their rooms are done! The house is actually pretty conservative looking with grey walls, white wooden furniture and soft pastel decor. They do have a stripper pole in the living room though lol
Charm: his room looks exactly how you expect from him. Dark walls with lots of bright rave type decorations. On his dresser is a large pretty cake display that stands out from the rest of the rooms theme lol. His room is always on a state of organized chaos with his desk and bed covered in nick knacks but the floors staying oddly clean
Sugar: his room has light lavender walls and black furniture. It’s a big difference from the soft feminine style people expect from him. Instead sugar has a more sleek modern style to his room. He also has a standard mannequin in the middle that always has a new dresses pinned to it.
Fellswap (red)
They own a pretty two story house only a block away from the two apartment complexes that lord owns. The front lawn/garden is in top shape with lots of those metal flower decorations stuck in the ground along the dirt outline. Inside the house is most worn but comfy looking furniture. Nothing special
Lord: his room is pretty basic with mostly brown and grey accents. He does have a large mostly filled bookcase. There’s also two white bean bags and a deep red rug that covers nearly the whole floor of the room.
Mutt: he actually has two rooms. The first is pretty simple with just his bed, a writing desk and a rack for some shoes. Also his bird cage for KFC (pet pigeon). The second room has a sink, and several cages and boxes for the injured animals that he rehabilitates. The second room is slightly larger than his actual room.
Fellswap gold
They actually live in a studio apartment above wines antique shop. The apartment used to be an unused storage static until wine bought the building and repurposed it. The living space itself is a little small, but they also have access to the roof which the gold bros use as a potted garden and dining area.
Wine: his room is very classy with silk curtains on the window and a silky cream canopy above his head. All the furniture is a dark grey wood with pretty carvings and designs. The walls are decorated with beautiful floral paintings from his brother. It’s a pretty well planned out room. Very cosy and luxurious
Coffee: he has two rooms as well. The smaller of the two is just his bed, dresser, closet and a tv with some consoles hooked up to it. The second room has shelves lining nearly every wall except for one which is just a big collab mural. On the shelves is various art supplies and projects. There’s one large sketch desk on one wall. And finally in the middle of the room is a tarp attached to the floor housing whatever piece of furniture coffee is restoring at the moment .
Dancetale
They also own an apartment, one of the flats in lords buildings on the ground floor. It’s the other building from the swapfell brothers. The walls are painted a cheery yellow and the house is mostly decorated with spring colors. There’s always a huge bowl of fresh fruit in the kitchen.
Pop: his room is mix and match of completely different furniture and gadgets. Pop isn’t someone who cares about themes so he will keep whatever catches his fancy. Instead of a bed, he has a hammock attacked to the ceiling with a pillow and some throw blankets casually tossed on top lol.
Rhythm: his room is pretty sparse with just his bed, a shoe rack, and a dresser. On the dresser are pictures of each of his face classes right before they graduate. Rhythm doesn’t really care all that much about decor so the walls are pretty bare too
Outertale
They live in the same gated community as the classic brothers! The outertale home has high ceilings and lots of windows. The living room is the real centerpiece of the home. It has several large antique bookcases and display cases. Inside the displays are various rocks and crystals and the occasional fossil. It’s really neat.
Pluto: his room is comprised of mostly blues grays and greens. He has a small bookcase on the side of his bed where he keeps the things he’s currently reading. There’s also a large fish-tank with an assortment of saltwater fish inside. Pluto’s room also has a large circular fluffy rug in the middle of the floor. The floor itself is hardwood
Jupiter: his room has a similar color scheme except instead of greens, Jupiter has gold instead. He has some exercise equipment stacked nicely on the side of his bed including weights. There’s a wall tapestry with a printed picture of the asteroid belt the outertale monsters used to live in.
Gastertale
The gaster brothers also live in the same neighborhood as the classic and outertale bros. They’re at the very end in the little cul-de-sac. The interior of the house is almost all white with cream carpet, metro grey walls, and white furniture. A few of the small decorations add a bit of color. There’s a lot of potted succulents.
G: his room is probably the only dark room of the house. His walls are a charcoal grey and the furniture is mostly jet black with a few mustard colored decorations. There’s a metal wire bookcase hanging on the wall. G also has a plastic anatomy dummy that he dresses up in his motorcycle gear when he’s not using it. G thinks he’s funny
Green: like the rest of the home, his room is also mostly white. He has a pretty pale green rack for all of his glasses on his dresser. Green also has his several degrees framed in silver on the walls. his room is always spotless
Farmtale:
The farm bros have an old Victorian home that they fixed up themselves. They’re home borders the acres of farmland they own and is about a 45 minute drive from ebott city. The inside is decorated with mostly wooden furniture. There’s like four rocking chairs on the porch lol
Peaches: his room fits the theme of the house with mostly wooden furniture and a lot of quilts and rugs to add color and soften it up. Peaches always has a vase of fresh wildflowers on his dresser. The walls have photographs of plants and animals taped to them that peaches took himself.
Rancher: this mad lad has a large moose skull hanging above his four poster log cabin bed. He also hangs his favorite hunting rifles just below the moose lol. His bedroom is mostly wooden of course but is also decorated with lots of red and orange plaids.
Horrorfell
They live in the same neighborhood as the horrortale and horrorswap brothers. Their home is literally right in between the two. Inside it’s decorated in a mix between sleek modern metals and frumpy cozy style. Somehow the horrorfell bros still have their original sofa from the underground. There’s a lot of little homemade staircases for their cat doomfanger who’s too old to claim on top of things herself now
Rust: his walls are painted a soft heather grey and have some basic wooden decorations that noir painted for fun. The furniture is pretty normal with the exception of a large treasure style chest next to his bed. Open it up and you’ll find a collection of drawings and gifts from the kids he’s watched over the years. Rust didn’t have the heart to throw them away.
Noir: unsurprisingly, his room is littered in canvases and paintings on the walls. It’s divided into two sides: the messy paint side and his nice neat living side. He even has a line of tape going down the middle to complete the divide. On his living side is his bed, closet, and a low bookcase that he uses as a second dresser. The actual bookcase is in the living room
Horrorswap
As y’all all know, their house is right next to the horrorfells and one house away from the horrortales. They like bright colors and have a sort of summery themed house. The best part is the back garden which is filled with garden boxes of veggies, fruit bushes, and fruit trees.
Lilac: his rooms main color is a pretty powder blue along with canary yellow and some bright green. He has a yoga mat on the floor in place of a rug. The walls have some neat sunrise posters
Basil: his room is pretty cosy with lots of knit blankets and fluffy pillows. He has a massive poster of Pixar’s ratatouille that rust got him as a joke. Basil has like five coconut planters, each housing a different herb plant making his room smell like an Italian restaurant
The Mafias (tale, fell, swap)
The mafia brothers live in an apartment complex masquerading as a warehouse. The ground and top two floors are working area while there were three secret basement levels. The mafia bros home consists of the whole bottom level with all their rooms connected to a hallway. At the end of the hallway is a living space and the kitchen.
Snipe: his room is the one closest to the living area. Inside is sage walls with a few house plants that can survive in low light. His bed is almost never made lol. If one was to tear the room apart, they would find at least six different guns stashed in hidden compartments
Bruiser: his room is the closest to the staircase. Inside the room somehow looks super messy but is actually spotless. Bruiser decorates the walls with all kinds of gifts people randomly give him during his vigilante escapes. Stuff from pocket mirrors, to foreign currency to even a small collection of sea shells. He drilled holes into them and hung them up on strings. Other than his walls, the furniture is pretty plain
Butch: his room is a mix of greys, blacks an silvers with the basics of furniture and a small black leather sofa. On the walls are some pretty hand melded metal decorations that butch made himself. He smokes in his room so it reeks of cigars
Boss: his room fits him perfectly with clean white plaster walls, sleek metal furniture and black and gold marble decor. Everything in that room has a specific place. If anyone moved his stuff, he’d know. It’s the only mafia bro room that doesn’t caught smell like smoke somehow. There’s a male model mannequin that he uses to practice designing clothes on
Ace: the most eye catching part of his room is a large vanity with several lamps attached and a very extensive makeup kit. I’m talking professional grade. Ace isn’t the spy for nothing. He also has an open closet so all his clothing is out on display. The main color of his room is mauve funny enough
Slim: his room is a drab grey and has a large desk taking up a whole wall. It’s filled with screens and monitors. He also has a few tv screens hooked up to the wall. It almost looks like a security room. On the other side is his bed with a canopy curtain for privacy. There’s a few anime posters on the wall as well
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coldmilkcreamery · 3 years
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all rights reserved.
𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: jung sungchan x male reader 🌹
𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 2045
𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: sungchan lends you a pair of jeans a whiff too tight and immediately regrets doing so.
𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴/𝘀: a lot and i mean a LOT of pet names, also, cringe 😬
𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘆 ⭐️
𝗮/𝗻: sooo, we’re back ig! and oh my god did i enjoy writing this and how perfect the gif i found is for the story just made it all the more entertaining 😂😂 so hope you enjoy!! we’ve had this in our drafts for suuuuchh a long time but we only found it in ourselves to post it now :p ahaha, consider this a comeback of some sorts?
> 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 <
-
“God I’ve missed you.” Sungchan says with bated breaths as he nuzzles his chin against the crook of your neck from across the driver's seat.
“Jesus Sungchan, it’s been less than 12 hours since you last saw me.” You giggle as he presses his lips against your jaw.
“You even had dinner at my—” He cuts you off, grabbing the back of your head and pushing your lips onto his. “—place.” You weakly continue.
“Shhh.” He says, halting your speech, laying a finger on your lips as the rest scramble to unbuckle your seatbelt.
“Sungchan.”
“Shhhhh.” He slurs, even longer this time as the seatbelt springs up to your shoulders before disappearing into the seat.
A gentle kiss takes the place of his index finger on your lips. Sungchan’s tongue rams into yours and both of your lips vibrate as mewls spew from them.
“Sungchan, we should stop.” You chuckle, pushing him off of you. “We’re in a car.” You add, succeeding your hasty and intermittent breaths.
“Fine.” Sungchan obliges, his lips pressed into a petulant pout as he shuts down the engines.
You look at the parking space ahead, the headlights forming strings of yellow in the fast-paced rainfall. He reaches over to twist the key digging into the steering wheel, knocking over a cup of coffee in his path.
“S-Sungchan, honey?” You quiver under the gush of liquid making waves over your jeans.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Sungchan’s palms slide up his face and into his scalp. “Are you hurt baby boy?” He drags his words through pressed lips.
“I-I’m fine.” You stutter as he babies your cheeks with his palms, rubbing and squeezing them, his doe eyes staring into your slightly irritated look.
“Do you have an extra pair?” You ask, reaching behind your backrest for a towel.
“I do actually.” Sungchan beams, ripping his hands off of your cheeks. “Renjun left one at my place, I was going to drop it off one of these days, but I suppose you could use it.”
“Renjun’s!?” You howl. “That’s not gonna fit me!”
“They’re a little baggy on him, so they’ll just be a bit tight.” He replies, as he takes the towel from you. “Here, let me.”
Sungchan watches you with a lidded gaze as his hands stroke your thigh, which took the brunt of the spill, with a towel. He makes rounds in the area before roaming your inner thigh and ultimately wandering to your crotch.
“Don’t.” You bite back with a squinted glare, catching his tongue slip out of the crevice of his lips to dampen them. “My god Sungchan, less than a day since you last saw me, less than a day.”
“Not my fault my little baby boy’s such a hottie.” Sungchan briskly winks, his petulant tone sugarcoats the obscenity of his remark.
“Just give me the pants.” You restlessly reach your hand out. “And I’m not that short, you’re just a giant.”
“Here you go baby.” He cooes as he catapults the pair into your palms, garnering a soft and whiny ‘thank you’ from you as you reach for the tab of your zipper.
Your fingers stall its teeth as you sit the pants beside your lap. Catching a set of eyes from the corner of your sight, your head creeps up towards them.
“What are you waiting for?” A voice emerges from the pair of eyes staring at you.
“N-nothing, it’s just that,” You pause, rubbing the back of your neck.
“What?” Sungchan inches closer, wrapping his arm around one shoulder.
“You’re staring at me.”
Sungchan bursts into noisy and unrestrained peals of laughter, occasionally shaken by his head making swings backwards. He plants his hand on his puffing abdomen as he tries to stifle his laughter.
“I’m your boyfriend.” He manages to cough out in his wheezing fit. “If anything, I’d like to see you remove even more than your pants.” He adds, shooting you a perky wink, tugging at your cheeks again.
“I—” You stammer, eyes wide as your cheeks burn red.
“Aww, is my precious pumpkin getting shy?” Sungchan interrupts you, pursing his lips and furrowing his brows as he pinches your cheeks. Again.
You slap his hand away, inhaling sharply, retracting a fist to threaten a punch. Two fingers from each hand hook into the waistband of the pants as your legs squirm into the pair.
“Ok, I’m done, let’s go.” You pant for air as your feet pop out of the bottom hems. A lewd smirk surfacing Sungchan’s lips narrows your eyes at him.
“What now?” You let out a raspy groan.
“Nothing.” Sungchan brings a fist up to his lips, to shield his grin. “Just, a little tight don’t you think?” He snorts, eyeing the jean’s stretched seams and the creaseless bulge ballooning from under its fly.
“You bi—”
“I don’t mind though.” He giggles, his fingers making another voyage to your cheeks before being swatted away by your hands.
“You look good.” Sungchan’s eyes flicker up and down your body as he lightly bites at his bottom lip. Little did Sungchan know that he wouldn’t be the only one to think so.
Had he known how much attention the fit of Renjun’s pants would draw, he would have very much rather wasted the little money left in his wallet to buy you a pair. Not that he thought you didn’t already have one though.
Sungchan coughs out an exasperated huff as you stroll past probably the third group of women he’s caught ogling your lower body since you got to the shopping district.
You and Sungchan come across yet another woman. He catches her passes at flirting, tucking hair behind her ears, shy smile, looking down, discrete grooming and shoots her a stringent glare.
His wrist curls into the palm of your hand and his fingers snake onto your knuckles as he hauls you away from her. You look at his hand and tighten your grip on it.
“Sungchan, babe,” You call out smiling, prodding his shoulder as you take notice of his glum frown. “sweetie.”
“Dude.” Your voice is raised slightly and your nudges get heftier with the silence. “Hyung!”
“Y-yes babe?” His voice is shaky as he glares into the distance.
“What’s wrong?” You reach up to rub his back. “Why the long face?”
“Nothing baby.” Sungchan’s flexed brows and firm pout let loose. His expression softens as he briskly looks to you with a delicate smile.
“I’m hungry, let’s go have lunch.” He urges, dragging you to the food court, this time stringing his whole arm around yours so that your elbows are touching.
“Okay.” You reply, curling your forearm up and cuffing Sungchan’s bicep in your hand on the way to a restaurant.
“I’ll get that for you.” One of the workers by the counter approaches your table, picking up a couple of baskets and the checkered, oil stained liners on them.
“Thank you.” Sungchan’s eyes crinkle as he rests his forearms on the now emptied table. Looking over the screen of his phone, his smile dissipates.
Her eyes wander to your lower half. Her cheeks burn red as she brushes chunks of hair on either side of her forehead behind her ears.
Here we go again, Sungchan mentally groans..
“I-I’ll get going.” She squeaks, waddling back to her counter to dispose of the trash.
Sungchan manages to grab hold of pieces of tissue. His fists clench on top of the table, fingertips digging into his palms and ripping the paper towels.
“She better.” He mumbles, lower lip jutting further out as the rigid edges of the ripped up tissues peer out between his fingers.
“What was that hun?” You furrow your brows at him, eyes emerging from the top of your phone.
“N-nothing.” He stammers, his twitching eyes locked onto the back of the waitress as teeth grit behind his adhered lips. “Why don’t we order our food?”
“Sure.” You smile. “I’ll place our orders.”
“Wait what?” His eyes widen, jerking to you as you get up to approach the counter. The curve of Sungchan’s frown deepens as he watches you approach the busser who cleaned your table a while ago spiral into a flustered mess.
He stares up from under strands of hair at the both of you. Acute giggles spray out of her toothy smile. She brushes chunks of hair from either side of her forehead behind her ears as she hands you a pen to sign your receipt.
She was trying to flirt. With his boyfriend.
And to make things worse, she wasn’t even trying to be discrete about it. Sungchan’s pouted lips tremble, going agape as he watches the girl eye you up and down in a way only he’s supposed to.
His palms land on the armrests of his chair as he elevates from his seat. You arrive at your table with a tray of food, stopping Sungchan from standing up.
“Sungchan.”
“Hello! You there?” You wave in front of his eyes as you rest the tray of food on your table.
“U-uh yeah? W-what?” Sungchan stammers.
“You want anything else?”
He grins weakly and shakes his head, looking back at you. He sits back down, now staring blankly at the swiveling cubes of ice in the paper cup in front of him.
“Here’s a cup of water and the coffee you ordered.” The same girl from the counter squeals.
She slips on her heel which causes the tray in her hands to dip on one side, spilling water from the collar of your shirt down to its bottom. A scoff spews from Sungchan as he catches the knowing smirk form on her lips.
“First my pants and now my shirt.” You sigh, looking at Sungchan as your arms hover over the wet patch of your shirt.
“O-oh I-I’m so sorry!” She covers the smirk at the bottom of her face with her hands. “Here, let me wipe that for you.”
A blank and expressionless smile materializes from Sungchan’s expression. “It’s no big deal, let me do it.”
“N-no sir, let me, it’s my job.” The girl bows only for Sungchan to help her torso up which causes her to flinch slightly.
“No, please, I know you’re busy, let me.” He exhales deeply, seeming to bite his teeth at the last few words.
“But sir—”
“Listen to me while I’m asking nicely.” He whispers maliciously, tilting his head and raising a brow over his twitching eye, causing you to flinch this time.
“Let me do it. And while I’m at it, I want you to pack our food for take out, and Get. Away. From. My. Boyfriend. Got it?” Sungchan seethes, staring her down with a wide-eyed glare.
“Follow me.” Sungchan rasps, after ripping the packed up leftovers from the girls fingers.
Both of your brows raise as a squeak jumps from the girl’s throat. Your lips curve into a lopsided smile to stifle your laughter. You now know why Sungchan had been acting so weird the whole day.
Sungchan’s always been the clingy, protective, cannot be alone for more than five minutes type. It does annoy you at times but on occasions like this, it really shows how much he loves you.
“To where?” You ask, continuing to suppress potential laughter.
“I’m buying you a pair of pants.” He continues, glaring into the distance squeezing your hand in his. “And a new shirt.”
“Why?” You question blankly.
Sungchan’s eyes flicker to you before jolting away. “A-aren’t you uncomfortable?”
“Not at all.” You taunt.
“B-bu—” Sungchan stammers.
“But what?”
“I-I—”
“You what?”
“I-II just don’t like how every girl we pass by stares you up and down like you’re some piece of meat.” Sungchan whines, lips firmly pressed together.
“Jealous much?” A smirk balloons from your lips.
“O-only I should be allowed to look at you like that.” He whines, looking down with a frown.
Heaving a sigh, you succumb to your own laughter. “Love you babe.” You coo, pinching Sungchan’s cheek.
“You’re mine and only mine, you know that right?” Sungchan grabs you into his embrace, sliding the back of his fingers up and down your jaw.
Wrapping your arms around his nape, you gently peck his lips and smile into his eyes. “All rights reserved.”
-
𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙙: 02.23.21
𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙: 02.27.21
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floralseokjin · 3 years
Text
⤑ made-up love song drabbles
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First date: Seokjin’s POV
kim seokjin x reader warnings; none! words; 2,196 words
↪︎ read the series here / and drabbles here
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Seokjin felt like a drink. It was nine o’clock in the morning, so absolutely out of the question, but it didn’t stop him from craving it. Whiskey. Definitely whiskey. Nana’s PA had just been to pick up Arin for the weekend – Thank God. Finally she would be able to spend time with her mom after a month, which he was over the moon about, and selfishly, that meant his date with you could go ahead. Even if he was so nervous he could throw up. 
Work had been a great distraction for the past two days but once he’d woken up this morning the realisation had dawned on him. He was going on a date tonight. His first in a decade. He still couldn’t believe he’d actually gone through with it and asked you to dinner. He’d faced his fears, possibly made a fool of himself and shared too much about his personal life in the process, but you hadn’t seemed to mind at all. You were so easy to talk to, it was refreshing. He’d felt brave for the first time in months – years.   But it still didn’t stop him from being on pins as soon as he’d opened his eyes this morning. 
He’d showered early, just after Arin had woken up and then he’d helped her get ready for the day too, allowing her to eat her breakfast in front of the television as he tried to swallow down his bowl of porridge too. It tasted like cardboard – but then again, it might have been his cooking. Misook usually made the food around her, when he wasn’t dining out or ordering take out of course. 
Arin had noticed his strange mood straight away. Obviously. 
“Daddy, what’s wrong with you this morning?” She’d asked, looking over at him warily before hesitating. “I am spending the weekend with mom, right?”
“Of course you are, sweetie” he’d rushed, shaking away the  surge of anger he’d felt. It pained him to know she was always expecting the worst lately. “Your mom just text me to say Jia is on her way.” 
She’d smiled then, her face lighting up and he couldn’t help but match it, his nerves disappearing for a while. That was until he was left all alone, the house now empty and silent. He eyed the bottle of whiskey on the kitchen counter (where he’d left it after his small nightcap last night) and shook his head. He should drop you a text, just to check in and see if you were still on for tonight. He needed to find out what time to pick you up anyway. He probably should have messaged you the day before, he panicked suddenly, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as he pulled his phone from his sweatpants pocket. Oh well, there was no time for regrets, that’s what his father always said. 
It took him at least ten minutes to figure out what to say. His first draft sounded too cheerful, too false, he was trying way too hard and had added an examination point. His second was too formal, fifteen years of sending business emails back and forth obvious. He settled on something in the middle – he hoped.  
Unknown (9:32am)  Hi Y/N,  It’s Kim Seokjin, Arin’s father. Just wondering if you still want to have dinner tonight? If so, please let me know and I will send through the restaurant details. We can decide on a time for me to pick you up.  Regards, Seokjin 
Only, reading it back after he hit send he began to second guess himself. Of course you knew who he was, his confidence might be lacking a little right now but he knew he wasn’t totally forgettable. What an idiot. Not that he could do much, there was no turning back. He’d committed. 
He busied himself with a bit of Saturday morning cleaning while he waited for your reply, and by that he meant straightening up the pillows he and Arin had been sitting against earlier. When he returned to the kitchen, your message was waiting for him. 
You (9:43am)  Of course, send the details. I trust your taste! 
See, exclamation points suited you. It was cute. He could just imagine you saying it in person, your dazzling smile, maybe that little giggle you’d made a few times on Wednesday. He felt something warm in his chest as he got lost in his thoughts, nerves easing once again. You were excited for tonight, he told himself.   Maybe you were even just as nervous as him possibly… 
He spent yet another few minutes composing his reply. A lot more casual this time, signing off with just his name. He didn’t always text like this, Namjoon could vouch for him, but he didn’t think you were both quite there yet. He wanted to show his best self after all. He wanted to impress you. He wanted to make you like him as much as he liked you. 
Seokjin (9:50am)  The sudden pressure… The restaurant’s name is KIM. I hope you like it. Is 7 alright to pick you up? I made reservations for 7:30.  Seokjin 
In truth, this restaurant was one he co-owned with his brother. Seokchul was the executive chef and they were both very proud of how successful their business venture had become. He knew taking you to such a place might seem like a cop-out – or worse, a brag – but that wasn’t the case at all. He wanted to treat you in a place that meant a lot to him. He could have chosen multiple restaurants, he was a regular at quite a few and could easily get a great table, but see, that did seem like he was showing off and he did not want to give you that impression at all. It was the complete opposite of his personality. KIM was a good choice, he was sure of it, and it helped that his brother didn’t work weekends, so there was no risk of bumping into him. Although, he had let him know about the date (and had begged him not to spill to their mother). 
You (9:52am)  I will. 7 sounds perfect. I’ll send through my address. See you later! 
You followed up with a Google Maps link to your home, and he sent a quick thank you – sans his name this time. With a quick sigh he pocketed his phone again, it was time to get on with his day. He had some paperwork from yesterday to complete by Monday morning so he should probably make a start. He stopped to order a light lunch at midday, ate it as he scrolled through his very limited social media before getting back to it. 
He called it a day around 3pm, a call from his mom interrupting his flow. He spent an hour talking, their weekend phone calls were habitual by now and he enjoyed them immensely.  He loved his father of course, but their conversations mostly revolved around work. Despite stepping down as CEO three years ago, he was still a vital member of the company, and Seokjin continued to consult him at every opportunity and lean on him for support when things got stressful. With his mom, she was the woman he could still be a kid around. They could talk about anything and everything, but for her own benefit he left out his plans for tonight. He knew what she was like, she’d get way too excited and overwhelmed and before long she’d be sobbing down the line while simultaneously asking to meet you. She’d been wanting him to meet someone new for so long, much like Mrs. Shin. It was a surprise the two women weren’t conspiring behind his back. 
No, he’d keep it a secret for now. If things went well tonight, then possibly his mother would get to find out. He wasn’t getting his hopes up though – or at least he was trying not to. 
It was just after four when he got off the phone, too early to start getting ready just yet, so he sat in front of the television and tried to concentrate on a series he’d recently started. (It wasn’t going well. He was on about one episode a week out of a nine season TV show.) It was no use though, the nerves were rearing their ugly head again. 
He decided to choose his outfit. Seokjin wasn’t much of a thinker when it came to fashion, he just grabbed whatever he saw first that morning, but tonight he wanted to at least put some effort in. After much deliberation he decided on a navy two piece paired with a white dress shirt. It wasn’t over the top, he thought, but nice enough to make that impression that was so very important to him. He kept his hair simple. He’d managed to squeeze in a haircut yesterday so it made things easier, but upon closer inspection in the mirror he noticed those pesky grey hairs of his glittering in the sunlight. He grimaced, worried now. He didn’t know your exact age yet, but it was obvious he was a few years older than you. He was no spring chicken, especially with those wrinkles around his eyes. He had been called handsome all his life, no stranger to it, but right now he was dubious. 
He pushed his trivial concerns away and concentrated on the next decision. What car he would take. He didn’t want to go too flash – again with the showing off thing – so the Aston Martin was definitely off the cards. He hadn’t actually driven that one much, going through some sort of so-called midlife crisis when he’d bought it straight after his divorce, so he made a mental note to take it out next weekend. He decided on the Mercedes convertible (roof on, of course). It seemed like a suitable choice, not too flashy at all really. He didn’t want to run the risk of putting you off him or overwhelming you with showy displays. He was well aware of the differences between your lifestyles, not that he cared at all, but it didn’t stop him from understanding. The things that seemed slight to him could very well be enormous for you. He didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable in any way, shape or form. 
Shit, on second thoughts maybe his restaurant was a bad idea… 
.
.
Seokjin was always punctual, he prided himself on it, but tonight it made him nervous. He’d said 7 but it had only just gone quarter to. He couldn’t very well stay in the car for fifteen minutes, you’d spot him out the window, so ever so slowly he opened his car door and stepped out, his heart thudding against his ribcage. He was sure he noticed his hand shaking as he closed it behind him. He was such a mess it was embarrassing. 
You lived in a nice little neighbourhood, it seemed quiet, and he admired your pots of flowers in the patch of garden you had as he made his way up the path that led to your front door. He took a deep breath before ringing the doorbell, adjusting his suit jacket as he waited for you to open up. It’s fine, Seokjin, he told himself. It’s just dinner. You’ve done much scarier things in your life. Pull yourself together, man. 
A few seconds later the door opened in front of him and you came into view, looking as beautiful as ever. I’m fucked, he thought immediately. 
“Hi,“ he forced himself to say as he smiled. He was probably staring but he couldn’t help himself. You looked stunning, your dress deep red in colour and incredibly flattering. His throat felt dry and he swallowed quickly. 
“Hey,” you greeted back. 
“You look beautiful,“ he couldn’t help but awe, hoping he wasn’t stepping out of line with his compliment. 
"Thank you,” you smiled almost shyly. It was adorable. “You look…really good.“ 
He couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that, aware the sound was probably highly unfaltering, but he couldn’t help it. "I’ll take it. Thanks.” He tilted his head to the right then, composing himself. “Are you ready to go? I’m a bit early, I know. Sorry about that." 
He really couldn’t tear himself away from your beauty, but luckily you didn’t seem to notice, busy nodding as you clutched your purse to your side. "I, uh… I would invite you in to kill time but my best friend’s embarrassing.” Your voice raised as you continued, your head turning slightly down the hallway. 
He raised an eyebrow, a little confused, but he guessed said best friend was in the house somewhere? He smiled and shook his head. “It’s fine.” 
As you stepped forward, a breath of a chuckle slipping from your throat, he moved to the side, outstretching his arm to let you lead the way. You accepted with a brief nod of your head, your gazes catching for a split second. God, you were gorgeous. 
His nerves might have eased a tad, but his heart was still beating just as fast – if not more.  
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Written 2020 - 2021. Please refrain from posting my work elsewhere. No translations allowed. © floralseokjin 2021
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pinkhairedlily · 3 years
Text
In Retrospect
Chapter 6 of The Spring He Came Back | 6 of 12
Hitsugaya had a plan – become the youngest tenured faculty in the academy and have countless watermelon contests with Baba and Momo. Graduation and tenure meant freedom to come home, to live out the rest of his days with the only family he knew. What he did not take into consideration was the prospect of marriage.
“That’s your plan?” Rangiku asked incredulously. Hidden between those words, he knew, was mockery. “You really are going through puberty.”
“Shut up, Rangiku. What do you know?”
“As a lady soon to reach the prime age of 18, I know a lot more than you. Raging hormones, pulls of attraction, intense infatuation-“
Hitsugaya had to cut her off before she ventured into more delicate matters, Rangiku-style. “Yeah, I get it. I don’t intend to marry.”
“Unless you see yourself marrying Hinamori, then you’re set for life. Otherwise, it’s an overly simplistic plan dead set on failing.”
“I don’t think of her like that. She’s just…my friend or like a sister.”
Rangiku didn’t say anything back then, but she brought it up again during their trip to Karakura. “Hey Hitsugaya. If you see Momo as your sister, why do you go through the extra mile for her? Sneaking out to meet her? Studying how to preserve daffodils? Renting out the custodian room? With family, you assume they’ll always be there, but you act as if you always need to do something for her to stay.”
He pretended to doze off right at that moment to avoid answering her question, simply because he was also confused. Momo is home, that he knew for sure. When the academy opened its gates for general admission, he half-expected Momo to apply. She was curious of the world and has a way with nature and plants. She would be interested in a formal education, at the very least. When she got accepted, he was beyond happy despite the black and white rules of classism and made-up hierarchy. When she told him she would like to be considered as a Soul core member, he wondered if that was her personal dream. Regardless, he rooted for her success. He always believed in her capabilities, and he never saw her lagging behind. She has her own pace and her own road to pave while he has his. In his mind, they were two separate journeys hoping to merge at the end of their respective successful conclusions.
So when did the realization set in that their paths have indefinite forks, forever parallel in their progress? Was it when he heard the uncertainty in her voice when their friends told her about the repercussions of her eventual Soul membership? Was it the twinkle in her eyes when she first told him she volunteered to assist Aizen in his studies? Was it the delivery of the news from Unohana that Aizen did not advocate for her membership to Soul, stating that Momo herself denied the offer? Or was it the tacit recklessness of her fieldwork which left Baba alone in the process?
“Where the fuck did you go, Momo?”
Tired eyes stared back at him and she mustered an apologetic smile. “I was in a fieldwork, Shirou. I’ll make it up to Baba, I promise.” Before she could take any step further, she suddenly collapsed on the ground. He ran towards her in a flurry, his heartbeat pounding wildly on his chest. He brought her inside, his feet knowing where her room was, and his mouth calling for Baba. Momo was running a high fever, possibly from fatigue and extended exposure to foreign elements.
“Do I need to call a doctor?” Baba was breathless as she entered the room. She placed her palm on her grandchild’s forehead and released a breath in relief. “We don’t have to. I’ll brew a medicinal tea. Help me gather the herbs Hitsugaya.”
The sun was setting when he got back, but Momo was still unconscious. He sat next to her futon and replaced the towel on her forehead. Somehow the temperature lowered down. It was so unlike Momo to leave Baba alone for two weeks, and especially during her birthday. He couldn’t help but feel angry towards Aizen. It was clear he was overworking her with no regards to her physical health. He didn’t even bother to check if his assistant was in good condition when they wrapped up the on the field. Then again, Momo was not the type to complain and openly state her well-being.
Books, notes, and papers were strewn around her once immaculate room. Too busy and overworked to clean, he thought. A folder with the label ‘References’ caught his attention. Curious if it contained the literature she was studying, he opened it. Contrary to his expectation, it was full of Aizen’s university records – from his student days to his faculty experience. The professor should have been tenured by now, considering his qualifications, publications, and pedigree, but he kept bouncing from one university to another. Maybe he just doesn’t want to settle down?
It dawned on him that Momo’s admiration for Aizen ran deep. She deferred the membership because that would take her away from the professor’s side. She didn’t need the academy or the prestige of being identified as a Soul. She only needed Aizen’s referral to apply in the same universities he studied in. Unfamiliar emotions rose to the surface. She chose a dream away from his side but closer to the professor’s. The fork in their roads was a deliberate, conscious decision, and he felt slighted at the implication.
Beside the folder was a photocopy of a list of equations and diagrams. Scrawled at the bottom were notes in a handwriting very familiar to him. Why was the work of his internship mentor, Urahara Kisuke, in Aizen’s studies?
Hitsugaya was broken out of his reverie when Momo stirred from her sleep. He hovered above her, checking again her temperature and called for Baba. She stared at him through her hooded eyes. “You stayed, Shirou?”
“Of course, silly. No one can drag your heavy body from the ground but me.”
“Did you win?”
“It was a draw. Ishida was too good for us and could have won with a landslide, but thank God Ichigo messed up his presentation.” He assisted Baba in helping Momo drink the herbal medicine. The old woman was near tears when Momo apologized for missing out on her birthday.
“My dear, just rest and recuperate. We’ll never leave your side. Let’s celebrate on another day, okay?” Baba placed a soft kiss on her forehead. Momo nodded weakly.
Baba shuffled out the room, a weight lifted off from her shoulders. “I’ll be preparing dinner, Hitsugaya. Are you going to stay the night?”
Momo was out of the woods, and Baba has all the ingredients for medicine. He was worried, but ultimately, he knew he wasn’t needed here. “I should go.”
A hand reached out under the blanket and wrapped itself loosely around his wrist, the fingers cold and clammy. “Shirou.” She didn’t need to say anything more. It was the silent plea in her voice and his uncontrollable urge to care for her. He swayed to her words as if he was programmed to do so the day he set foot in this world,
“On second thought, I might sleep here, Baba.” The old woman smiled at her two charges, happy to see them reunited despite the circumstances. She hummed a tune on her way back to the kitchen.
Hitsugaya also smiled, wanting time to revert to days of tranquility and blissful ignorance. He plied her fingers off his wrist, wanting to place it back under the comfort of her blanket, but he found himself wounding his own fingers through hers. He glanced at her face at any sign of objection and discomfort. “Is this okay?”
“Hmm.” She tightened her clasp on his hand and fell back to her deep slumber a moment after. He wished to have this privilege repeated when she regains her clarity, but he knew they’d be a fumbling mess of embarrassed individuals. It’s okay to stay like this.
----------------------
They were granted two weeks of vacation after the Karakura event, the remaining of which Hitsugaya spent with Momo and Baba. With two people keeping her in close observation throughout her full recovery, Momo had to temporarily stop writing research drafts. She was on bed rest in the next two days with Hitsugaya beside her. The following day, she was granted permission by Baba to walk around the compound, and on the next day, Hitsugaya and her slipped out to the meadow, still brimming with daffodils but some parts have wilted to signal the start of winter.
“We should buy a cake for Baba. Do you think there’s a watermelon-flavored one?” Momo busied her fingers, making crown out of the flowers. They never got around to talk about her denied confirmation to Soul yet.
“Your saturation point must be too high. We have been devouring that fruit since your bed rest.” But he didn’t want to be the person to bring it up first. “Let’s stick with vanilla and caramel. I’ll find one in the town central tomorrow. Can’t believe it’s gonna be another the start of another semester again.”
“Shirou?”
“Hmm?”
Her fingers stopped working on the flower crown, but she did not raise her eyes to him. “I won’t apologize for the Soul offer. I don’t want it at the moment.”
That hurt him in more ways than one. “Okay.”
“What?” She whipped her head back at him, wondering why he wasn’t angry.
Well, he didn’t have any right to be angry, after all. It wasn’t her plan. He wasn’t on her plan, and no matter how much he wanted her to accept the membership and stay closer to him, it still stood that he won’t be part of her plan. He has no right to take that choice away from her because….he was just a friend. “Just promise me you won’t overwork yourself.”
He was thankful that she smiled, having been relieved of the burden to articulate the why’s behind her decision. Frankly, he also didn’t want to hear them directly from her mouth.
“I’m not sure about that, but I’ll try!”
“For all that it’s worth, I hope he compensates you enough. Or put your name as his co-author.”
“Huh?”
Questioning eyes prodded more explanation from him. “Compensation. You know, salary that professors give to their RAs? Funding usually covers those fees. It’s also standard academe ethic to acknowledge them in their papers or have them as their co-authors.”
Momo’s face was a blank slate.
That can’t be right. Aizen did those, didn’t he? Hitsugaya opened his mouth again to pry the specifics of their contract, but Momo put on her jovial self, her defense mechanism. He decided not to push her, given that she just recovered.
“This would look good on you.” She nimbly placed the flower crown on his head, her smile breaking into laughter at the shock and embarrassment on his face.
“Get this off Momo before someone sees us!”
“Oh come on, just five minutes please.”
He relented, only to prolong her laughter in his presence. “I can’t say no to you.”
She scooted closer to him and arranged the flowers on his head, touching the tendrils of his silver hair. In a non-Momo fashion, she scooped up his cheeks in her hands. “You look like a cute dumpling!”
Warmth flooded his cheeks. “You’re too close Momo,” he tried to say through his scrunched mouth. He took hold of her wrists, trying to pry her hands away from his face, and it was a situation stupidly similar to that night they held hands. “I like you.”
He just blurted it out like that, her wrists in his hands, her daffodil flower crown on his head, and her smile still on her face. It wasn’t a declaration based on impulse, it was a domino effect of all the little things, all the little feelings, and all the little encounters. One by one, they have filled up his entirety like how a small daffodil can fill up a meadow. At that very moment, he understood what Rangiku meant.
“I like you too, Shirou.” It was an empty echo borne out of a friendship reflex. She knew that he knew they didn’t hold the same weight as his, but it was enough for now.
He pulled her in for a hug in the middle of that yellow meadow, a witness to their growth and the last happy memory they would have together.
----------------------
He wouldn’t say Momo avoided him for that semester, but her appearance suddenly became scarce. Up until the middle of the semester, she still went to their secret room and profusely apologized to the three Rs for denying the membership offer. She made it up to them, bringing bento boxes, buying new sets of tea and coffee. Hitsugaya noticed she didn’t mention their conversation and hug again, and he considered they were already past it. Then, she just stopped coming.
Irked and superbly irritated, he tried going to their side of the building. Almost conveniently, Aizen ran into him and asked what he wanted from his classes. Not wanting to stir up the pot, Hitsugaya made an excuse about getting lost and returned to the core building side. Something is fishy. If I cannot see her in the academy, there’s one place to go to.
He sneaked out one weekend to the compound to know how she was. To his surprise, the area was largely unkempt and most windows were closed. It was highly unusual because Baba will never slack out on her chores. He heard chronic coughing behind the door, a loud boom, and a string of things crashing one after another.
“Baba!” He found her lying on the floor, blood dripping from her mouth, her hands scratched with broken shards of glass.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins as his small figure tried to lift her up on his back. It was a miracle that he was able to reach the hospital just in time before she crashed. He wasn’t family, but the doctors needed consent for an immediate surgery. He gave the go-signal. He couldn’t wait for Momo.
She appeared at midnight, well past the time Baba had her surgery. Pale-faced and shivering from fear, she turned to Hitsugaya, willing him to tell her what happened, but he wasn’t looking at her.
A doctor appeared at his side, saving him from a lengthy conversation he didn’t have the energy to make.
“Your grandmother had chronic coughing in the past few weeks, it seemed, and she developed pneumonia. The infection scarred her lungs and caved them in, and that made her cough up blood. We had to take some portion of it out in surgery. She’s in the ICU and recovering, but you need to wait for a while because she is still susceptible to infections.”
Momo mouthed her thank you before dropping against the wall beside Hitsugaya.
“Where were you, Momo?”
“I was working with Dr. Aizen in some of his experiments. The workload was too much I had to sleep in school. I didn’t come home for two weeks. Only two weeks.”
“In those two weeks you left her alone, sick, and bedridden with no one to care for her.” Hitsugaya can’t stop the spite in his voice. “If I didn’t come to your house, you would not have found her alive.”
“I needed this. Baba understood me when I told her I’d be gone.”
“Baba always understands because she wants the best for you! She’ll never deny you that. Why are you so enamored with that professor that you can’t see through everyone else?”
“You’re overstepping a line here.”
“Why are you trying so hard to please him to the point that you’d risk Baba’s life for his work?”
“His work is my work too.”
“Exactly, Momo. You’re just a piece of his work. You’re a pawn that he liked to play around. He never compensated you nor credited you. I’ve read all of his articles and not one mentioned your name so don’t tell me that you’re busy working for your dreams when you’re wasting your time with him and killing off people you love.”
A resounding slap echoed in the hospital hallway. Tears were flowing from Momo’s eyes, and it pained him that he was the cause.
“Dr. Aizen is a respectable man, and I will not allow you to slander him further. You are just a peasant, an orphan we took from the street out of pity, and now you want to act like you have our best interests at heart when you entered the academy but in actuality, it was for your own selfish desire. You want to lecture me about hard work? I may always be his assistant, but you, with all your Soul perks and hierarchy, will never be on the same level as him. You’ll come far and achieve much more, but at the end of the day, you’ll always be a peasant. So get out of my sight and never come back until you become like him.”
----------------------
The next day, the supervisors and senior faculty represented by Byakuya and Unohana entered Aizen’s class. Trailing behind them in close distance was Urahara Kisuke, a renowned ecologist in Karakura who went on a sabbatical leave ten years ago.
“What an A-team. What do you need, madame and sirs?” Aizen cheerfully asked.
“Aizen Sousuke and Hinamori Momo, please follow us to the academy tribunal. You are wanted for plagiarism, fraud, and embezzlement.”
NEXT CHAPTER | 7 OF 12 | JUDGMENT NEEDED, NOT JUDGMENT DESERVED
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mopeytropey · 4 years
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a beer buds series: chapter 6
Timeline: takes place during chapter 5 of ‘apu’ just before Lexa and Clarke get a little too drunk while watching movies (oops!) in which they fall asleep on Clarke's couch together (oops again!), subsequently commencing what I like to call The Separation
Beer: Free Rise (MOSAIC) DRY-HOPPED SAISON
This edition of Free Rise highlights locally sourced Danko Rye from Valley Malt and Mosaic in the dry hop. A nuanced fruity hop profile is balanced with subtle, crisp malt character and expressive notes of pepper and clove. Light in body, with a clean, bone-dry finish.
ABV 7.3%
Posted on AO3 here or below the cut :)
Free Rise: Trillium Brewing Co (Fenway/Boston, MA) :::
“This newer location is great, but you really need to experience their beer garden next summer on the green. Clarke is obsessed with it—chances are she’ll probably drag you there at some point.”
Lincoln says it so casually, and the image that Lexa begins to paint comes effortlessly.
She and Clarke on a day trip to Boston in mid June, sharing sips of beer and sampling local food trucks in the afternoon sun. Clarke’s rasping laughter drifting through the park as Lexa is further charmed, relaxing in the warm sun and nearby ocean breezes.
She would allow Clarke to drag her any number of places, Lexa thinks. Given the opportunity.
“I’m excited to see both locations,” she says to Lincoln, as if her mind hadn’t drifted into an idyllic landscape of some potential future.
It’s what she’s begun to sense as of late: possibility.
A recent glimmer of hope has been sparking at the periphery of Lexa’s consciousness. There’s the exhilaration of what might be possible for her and Clarke, even in its uncertainty. Even if she doesn’t have any control over it. She can feel the potential of things to come buzzing through her even now, as she and Lincoln walk under the looming, green shadows of Fenway Park.
“Have you been?” Lincoln asks, nodding towards the infamous baseball park that sits in the heart of the city, surrounded by bars and businesses and gawking tourists.
“Not yet.”
“We should go—I haven’t had anyone to hate watch the Red Sox with in years.”
Lexa smiles up at him. “A cherished pastime.”
They swap baseball stats and playoff predictions while walking down the stretch of Brookline Ave between historic Fenway and Trillium. The city air is crisp and cool, and Lexa almost wishes for a jacket, but the chill invigorates her already vibrant mood. Upcoming plans with Clarke have filled her with an unchecked buoyancy.  
Costia had left that morning for her weekend away with a parting kiss to Lexa’s temple, a warm hand cupped around the back of her neck.
Safe, perfunctory. Everything that Lexa has begun to associate with Costia.
“Can we try to talk about this again when I get back?”
For once, Lexa hadn’t flinched at the mention of Costia’s research grant and its implications for their relationship. “Sure.”
The extent of their goodbye at the door of their apartment had been Costia’s soft look and Lexa’s small smile as she briefly squeezed Costia’s fingers.
There had been a time when impending distance felt torturous—longing would spring up after only hours apart, and Lexa would ache to see her again.
Those moments for them, like so many others, are gone now.
And, if they have lost their weight, if they are no more than performative interactions between them, Lexa has begun to wonder: what’s left?
What is it that has kept her clinging to Costia so willfully?
Lexa has always excelled at making sense of her life and maintaining control, even amidst the chaos and unpredictability that has so often plagued her. She considers herself a rational person with a reasonable sense of the world, particularly the mechanics of her interpersonal relationships.
Being with Costia had been no different. From the very start, they just made sense. Lexa has always found comfort in the expected, seeking logic and practicality in her daily life.
At least, historically.
Ever since Clarke (clumsily) breezed into her life, Lexa hasn’t felt entirely reasonable about much of anything. Clarke is still unfamiliar in many ways. Her entire friendship has been fortuitous, unprecedented. It’s the first time in Lexa’s entire life that she has been irrevocably drawn towards such palpable uncertainty.
“This weather is perfect—I love it up here at this time of year,” Lincoln says.
Lexa breathes in deeply, anchoring herself to this moment and quieting the thoughts of her indeterminate future. “It’s great,” she smiles and continues in stride with Lincoln’s comforting shadow cast over her.
:::
The taproom is stunning: polished wood in every direction, exposed light bulbs hanging from an open ceiling, and thirty-foot glass doors stretching along an entire wall. In the warmer months, Lexa imagines the doors opening to a cluttered patio. In the early autumn temperatures, the patio is empty and half of the room inside is bathed in natural light while the other remains dim and cozy.
Lincoln heads straight for the bar counter. While a handful of other patrons have favored the couches near the windows, the bar sits empty.
“Hey guys.” A woman around their age approaches from behind the bar. She slides two menus in front of them as Lexa takes her seat beside Lincoln. “Here’s what we’re currently pouring on tap. Cans are listed at the bottom. You need a minute?”
“That’d be great. Thanks,” Lincoln answers.
The woman walks away with a smile that Lexa catches only as she looks up from her menu.
Lincoln drums his hands against the counter top. “Oh shit, I know what I’m getting.”
“That was quick,” Lexa says, returning her attention to the draft pours.
“Their gose is ridiculously good.”
“I think I’m going to do the farmhouse.”
“Did you two decide?” The bartender is already approaching as Lexa glances up from her menu. “Sorry—I wasn’t trying to hover, but it’s pretty dead in here today.”
“No worries.” Lexa offers a brief smile and watches the woman’s face transform, brightening as she stops directly in front of her and braces her arms against the edge of the counter.
“I’m gonna do the gose,” Lincoln says.
“And, I’ll do the Free Rise,” Lexa adds.
“That one is my favorite,” the bartender responds, grinning at Lexa as she retrieves their menus. “Be right back with those for you.”
“Thank you,” Lexa says while reaching for her phone that has buzzed twice from the front pocket of her jeans.
She’s fighting a grin at the messages she finds, simultaneously typing her response as Clarke continues her barrage of nonsense, and doesn’t catch the odd look Lincoln is giving her until she slides her phone onto the bar top.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he shrugs, still looking too pleased for Lexa’s comfort. “So, what else are you up to this weekend? You wanna come check out the new poke bowl spot with me and O tomorrow?”
“I’m supposed to watch movies with Clarke tomorrow night—what time were you thinking of going?”
“No idea. I’ll let you know though. Or, you know, bring her with you. We can make it a foursome.”
His suggestion has her ridiculously flustered for what could be no more than an invitation to hang out with three of her friends. But, it’s Lincoln, and Lexa knows better than to underestimate his scheming.
“Yeah, I mean, I’ll, um, I’ll ask her,” Lexa answers, almost immediately distracted again by the vibration of her phone.
She’s still rolling her eyes at Clarke’s entirely ridiculous diatribe about the validity of poorly written screenplays of the early 90s when the woman behind the bar returns with their drinks.
“Here we go. Should I start a tab for you?”
“Um, sure,” Lincoln responds. He fishes out his debit card from his wallet and slides it across the bar counter.
“I really love your sweater, by the way.”
There’s a brief, weighted pause following the sound of the woman’s voice, and Lexa looks up from her phone when she realizes the compliment was meant for her.
“Oh. Thanks.” She flashes another momentary smile before reaching for her beer and sending off her scathing rebuke for Clarke’s lack of cinematic prowess.
The absolute ire that it will produce and the irritated messages that will follow almost make Lexa giggle in public. Pushing Clarke’s buttons has become an accidentally honed skill.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you not the same person who told me—not two weeks ago—that having beautiful women flirting with you typically grabs your attention?”
Lexa closes her phone instantly, replacing it to her jeans pocket where she hopes it will be safe from Lincoln’s insightful observations. Like getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she attempts to clear her face of any guilt as she looks over at Lincoln because Clarke had not been flirting with her in the first place. They have merely been discussing preferences in film through a medium of quick wit and lightly antagonistic banter.
“What are you talking about?”
Lincoln’s voice drops to an even lower volume as he leans towards her. “That bartender has been chatting you up since we walked in, and you seem to be on another planet right now.”
“She was not—”
“Oh-ho-ho,” Lincoln laughs. “Believe me. She definitely was.”
Lexa chances a quick glance down the length of the bar towards the woman polishing glassware. She looks up before Lexa can avert her gaze, and that same smile is back. Lexa’s stomach drops regretfully.
She hadn’t registered the blatant interest from their bartender nor her physical features, which are, objectionably, quite attractive.
Damn it, Lincoln.
“How is it?” the woman calls out, and Lexa raises her glass with a forced smile.
She takes a sip, pretending it isn’t her first, and can actually feel Lincoln fighting a smile to her left. “It’s great. Thanks.”
“Maybe having multiple beautiful woman flirting with you simultaneously is throwing you off,” Lincoln stage whispers, gleefully watching Lexa’s discomfort until she kicks his leg with the toe of her sneaker.
“I’m ignoring you now.”
“Oh good,” Lincoln laughs, “this should be a fun hang then.”
Lexa’s phone continues to alert her of Clarke’s persistence, or so she assumes by the rapidity at which it vibrates. Clarke never sends one, moderate length text when she could send 12 fragmented messages in quick succession. She reaches into her pocket to silence her notifications when Lincoln gently pokes a finger into her tricep.
“I’m just giving you a hard time. You know I don’t give a shit if you text Clarke while we hang out. She’s my buddy.”
“Why are you assuming I was texting with Clarke?” Lexa can hear the edge to her voice and reaches for a drink of her saison to lessen her defenses.
“Wild guess.”
Even Lexa is relatively powerless to Lincoln’s smirking charm and fights a smile of her own when their eyes meet.
“We’re debating movie selections for tomorrow,” she shares. “Her taste in film is generally abhorrent.”
“You two are always fighting about something.”
“Not intentionally. But, Clarke can be very … frustrating,” Lexa admits with a soft scowl into her beer. Lincoln laughs in response and she exhales. “We’re extremely different people.”
“Yeah, but differences are good. At least she keeps things interesting.”
Lexa barely manages not to choke on her beer, swallowing inelegantly. “That is one way to put it.”
“So, Costia is gone until Monday?”
Lexa tries not to let the abrupt change in conversation jar her. “Yeah.”
“Where’s the conference again?”
“D.C.” Lexa clears her throat, tracing a ring of condensation with her index finger against the bar. “Johns Hopkins.”
“How have things been? Any better?”
“Define better.”
Lincoln grimaces sympathetically at Lexa’s unmasked cynicism, and she exhales a cleansing breath. She’s determined not to make this yet another installment of airing her grievances of a stalled relationship, like so many times before. Lincoln is too kind and too selfless—she doesn’t want to take advantage of his friendship by making everything about herself all the time.
“Sorry,” she says softly. “I guess I don’t know how to determine if things are improving or not. But, we’re trying to be more realistic about our relationship at the very least. Talking a bit more. She’s been pursuing this research grant, which would mean almost a full year apart as she works abroad.”
“Damn.”
“I know. I took the news spectacularly well, as you might imagine.”
“Lost your shit a little bit?”
Lexa huffs a laugh and pulls on the sleeve of her sweater. “I think you accused me of being particularly homicidal that morning?”
Lincoln tips back in his stool with a laugh. “Ah, yes—I knew it.”
“Thank you for gloating at my expense,” Lexa responds drolly.
“Sorry.” Lincoln clears the laughter from his voice and attempts composure. “So, what’s the plan? Wait and see if her proposal is accepted?”
Lexa swallows down a mouthful of beer and runs a hand through her hair. “I think we have plenty to talk about even if she doesn’t get the grant, but yeah. We’re supposed to talk when she gets back.”
“That’s really good, Lex.” Lincoln’s gentle timbre is warm and reassuring, all prodding humor gone from his tone. “I mean, it’s tough, but avoidance is also generally unhelpful.”
“Yes, I’ve realized.” Lexa smiles over at him, feeling better already.
Lincoln then asks, “What about Clarke?” and her momentary sense of relief vanishes.  
She’s either gone extremely pale or is blushing fiercely because she feels both an icy chill and too hot all at once. She barely manages to respond without her voice shaking awkwardly. “What about Clarke?”
Lincoln is unfazed, lightly flicking his finger against her forehead as if they’re still thirteen and riding a noisy subway car. “She’s supposed to be your best friend, dummy. You should talk to her about this stuff.”
She’s never considered mentioning anything of significance about Costia to Clarke. It’s always seemed to Lexa, unsurprisingly, like a conflict of interest. Clarke will often inquire about Costia’s schooling, graciously concerned for her well-being within a demanding graduate program. In turn, Lexa offers her standard replies, never wanting to delve too far into their dynamic for fear it would reveal too much and ruin everything. Her life for the past several months has relied entirely on a delicate balance. Saying too much too soon could be perilous.    
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Hey guys, are we ready for another round?”
The unexpected sound of the bartender’s voice startles Lexa out of her thoughts, and she looks up to see that her beer is, in fact, empty.
“I’d like to try what he was drinking, actually,” Lexa tells her.
“You know what? I’m going to do the farmhouse,” Lincoln announces and slides their glasses closer to the woman standing in front of them.
She laughs easily while reaching for their empty glassware. It’s a nice laugh, ringing pleasantly in the quiet taproom. Even still, Lexa can’t help but register how much it pales in comparison to the addicting notes of Clarke’s distinctive laughter.
“Okay so two more of the same but in reverse,” the woman confirms. “Got it.”
As she leaves them, Lexa spins in her stool, determined to shift gears away from her indecisiveness. “Things with you and Octavia are going well?”
“Yeah,” Lincoln smiles. “Really great. She’s probably way too good for me, but I’m going to keep my mouth shut and hope she never figures it out.”
Lexa arches an eyebrow. “Do we need to sort through your abandonment trauma now? Because I thought we promised each other years ago that we would stop belittling our own self-worth.”
“No, no,” Lincoln laughs. “I’m good, I swear.” He shrugs a moment later and scratches his head. “Old habits.”
“There is no one too good for you, but if there were ever a perfect match out there, it’s Octavia.”  
The bartender returns with their drinks before Lincoln can respond, but he looks at her as if Lexa has just gifted him the cosmos and reaches out to squeeze her shoulder. Their next beer turns to idle chatter, old memories, sports, and shop talk. Lexa checks her messages while Lincoln is in the bathroom and finds that Clarke has not conceded any of her poorly formed arguments by even a fraction. The fiery retorts on her screen breed a smile so wide that she doesn’t manage to temper it by the time Lincoln returns.
If she were at liberty to be more honest, she would tell Clarke that it doesn’t matter what movies they watch. She’s just happy to be spending more time together. Instead, she slides her phone back into her pocket and stands beside her stool, stretching the stiff muscles of her back.
“You ready to go?”
Lexa smiles in response and nods.
They thank their bartender and exit the taproom into a setting sun. The foot traffic down Brookline Avenue is busier at the 5:00 hour as city workers rush towards their staggering commutes home. Lexa is lost in thought, still pondering her evening with Clarke the following day, when Lincoln abruptly pulls her down a side street with his hand wrapped around her elbow.
“Oh wait—this way.”
“Um, where the hell are we going?” Lexa asks when their course has been rerouted away from Lincoln’s car.
“I just decided I’m gonna take you for the best burger of your life. Storrow Drive is a parking lot right now anyway—it could take us hours to get home if we leave now. Let’s eat first and then drive back.”
In no rush to return to her empty apartment, Lexa shrugs easily. “Yeah, sure.” Being in Lincoln’s company is almost always preferable to anything else anyway.
After a moment’s pause, he nudges her with his elbow as they walk and is grinning stupidly when Lexa looks up at him. “If you really want to make Clarke mad, tell her we’re about to walk into Tasty Burger.”
Lexa has spent the better part of the year feeling unmoored by a lack of purpose. She has been draped in uncertainty and self-doubt after abandoning her life in New York. And while she still feels plagued by indecision, she’s also grateful for the choices she’s made that have brought her here, walking in stride with an old friend.  
She returns Lincoln’s smile and reaches for her phone.  
:::
57 notes · View notes
lenawin4 · 3 years
Text
an offer you can’t refuse
HOW WE DOIN ELLICK FANS?
I had this fic in my drafts halfway done, but after I watched that promo, I finished it in like, two hours. hope y’all enjoy. (also, may or may not contribute to the wave of 18x05/18x06 speculation fics. EXCITED)
summary: 
“It’ll be fun,” Nick said on Day Four, then looked at them incredulously. “What? You’ve never taken down the mafia before?” ft. the whole gang, some blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mentions of Tiva, and prank wars.
Or: Nick’s jealous, Ellie’s clueless, and the team dismantles a crime family.
rating: gen, k+
length: 3.4k
genres: fluff, minor angst, romance
read on ffn | ao3
So Ellie’s in her corner of the bullpen, and Nick can’t stop looking at her. That’s how it all starts.
She’s wearing one of her cashmere sweaters, and they’ve been working this case for so long that her outfit is three days old. The bags under her eyes can’t be hidden by makeup and the curls in her hair have started to flatten. She has that crease in between her eyebrows that warns him not to bother her with a stupid joke, but that’s never stopped him before.
Ellie’s phone rings, so he freezes in the middle of sauntering over to her, halfway through the bullpen. It’s magic: her eyes widen slightly; the crease disappears; a slow smile spreads, then a grin.
The corners of his mouth start to slip upward, but he fights it down because McGee is at his desk. He’s talking to the local PDs, spelling out one of the long Italian names they’re trying to pin on something, and Tim is eyeing him like a hawk.
“Mark?” Ellie shouts into the phone. 
Who?
“Gimme a sec,” Ellie points to her phone and mouths, I have to take this, sorry, and Nick is left gaping at the back of her head as she runs to the break room.
-
That happens on Day Six. A recap:
Dead sailor in a drive-by shooting in Bethesda. Grab your gear.
There was cocaine underneath the bed and piles of cash in the closet in the sailor’s apartment.
McGee traced a bank account in the Caymans to a Joey DiGiorno, as in, It’s-not-delivery-it’s-DiGiorno’s.
“Do you think he has a cousin named Domino’s?” Ellie asked; and —
For the fifth time this month, Nick realizes that he’s in love with Ellie Bishop.
Joey does not have a cousin, but he does have a criminal record and an uncle who happens to be the DC/Virginia/Maryland leader of the DiGiorno Family. 
“Wow, two states and the capital city,” said McGee. “Impressive.”
On top of Nick’s To Do List - Get Gibbs everything on this guy: records, cars, girlfriends, other nieces and nephews, etc., etc.
“It’ll be fun,” Nick said on Day Four, then looked at them incredulously. “What? You've never taken down the mafia before?”
-
McGee follows the money to a nightclub in DC (“Do they serve pizza?”; “Nick, please.”), but there’s no way to know when or how the drugs are smuggled into the building, which can only mean one thing: stakeout time.
Stakeouts are the worst. Stakeouts mean unlimited time in a confined place with nothing better to do, the uncomfortable silence of Nick and his thoughts and the little place in his head that teeters between sixteen different names and a glass jar of lake water that hides on the shelf of his apartment.
Right now, a stakeout is the best thing that could ever happen to him.
So, Mark. He can’t exactly Boyle his way into this, not after Bishop nearly chewed his head off because he cancelled her date. 
It’s not helping that Bishop keeps smiling at her phone every two hours, and semi-aggressively types out a text in all caps and extra exclamation marks. (He watches the way her fingers move. He knows those are exclamation marks. Like, at least ten of them.)
“Didn’t know dates liked it when you yelled at them all the time.”
“What?” Ellie says, not looking up from her phone.
He puts his feet up on the desk a little too harshly. Ellie wrinkles her nose.
“What could possibly be more important than this very, very interesting stakeout right now? Don’t you see there’s a hooker in front of the club and it’s barely noon? We should report it to Gibbs.”
There’s that sarcastic laugh that’s reserved for him, a quip about not being able to afford her, then back to the invisible Mark he’s heard nothing about.
-
To: ninja lady, 11:59
hey on a stakeout w El. what should i do
To: big wuss, 12:05
prank war. worked for us.
To: ninja lady, 12:06
i’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not
-
He tells her he’s buying fast food and chips a few blocks away. He asks the cashier for an extra paper bag and places a spring-loaded glitter bomb from the Dollar Tree at the bottom.
-
To: ninja lady, 14:05
success
To: big wuss, 14:07
ha! watch your six. revenge is tasty, no?
To: ninja lady, 14:09
i think you mean vengeance is sweet, but check with your husband
-
Nick returns from a bathroom break and peers left and right. Nothing in the room has changed: Ellie is still finishing the bag of fries. Her head is turned towards the window, and she’s glancing at her phone every few seconds. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but he sort of doesn’t care. His chair hasn’t moved from the computer desk, and there are no booby traps outside the bathroom door or in the hallway.
Okay. The coast is clear.
“Hey, maybe you should check your face one more time, I think you still have glitter — ”
Splat.
His chair explodes in a tidal wave of green and red paint, splattering all over his jeans — gross, it feels so cold — and his leather jacket. 
When he looks up, Ellie’s beaming at him from behind her phone, fry stuck in her mouth like a cigarette, green paint smeared across her cheek like evidence. Mercilessly, she sends the video to McGee, Kasie, and Tony.
-
To: big wuss, 17:25
I’m disappointed.
To: ninja lady, 17:29
yeah, yeah, laugh all you want
this sucks
To: big wuss, 17:30
Not just the stakeout, I presume?
To: ninja lady, 17:32
who the hell is Mark
she keeps texting him
it’s distracting me
To: ninja lady, 17:35
you know, from work
To: big wuss, 17:40
Oh, Nicholas.
-
(Across the Atlantic, in a small apartment in Paris, a married couple compares recent messages.
Ziva clicks her tongue. “I think he might be a bigger wuss than you, Tony.”
“I had better pranks than this guy, okay, at least give me that.”)
-
There’s a crowd of seamen lounging around the club. Their voices send pinpricks into his brain, and he can smell the alcohol from the second floor of this building. The bouts of laughter and shouts are interrupted by crunching. Next to him, the foul smell of artificial cheese surrounds Eleanor Bishop. Her fingers are coated with orange dust. Her eyes are laser-focused on the group of men, arms around each other, starting to sing the first bars of “Piano Man”. She licks her lips, and a bit of orange dust is left over at the edge of her mouth. She brings her fingers to her lips to lick them clean.
Nick’s mouth is suddenly dry.
Okay, okay, he needs to focus. Focus. It’ll be easy.
When he finally turns away, the hooker is grabbing one of the men by his tie, who tries to pull away. He rolls his eyes, but before Nick can say, “Playing hard to get, are we?”, the sailor is handing her a thick wad of cash. It’s exchanged for something thickly wrapped in saran plastic wrap, and he jolts out of his seat.
“It was the hooker!”
-
Nick did not know running that quickly in high heels was possible.
-
Ellie’s phone dings three times past his limit on the way to the interrogation room. The sound grates against his ears and his eyes can’t roll further up his socket. She doesn’t even notice.
They’re behind the glass, waiting for McGee to question her, when Gibbs walks in. He takes one look at the green paint on Ellie’s cheek and sees the same paint on Nick’s jeans.
Before Ellie can try to explain, Nick announces, “Gibbs, I told Ellie to call you about the hooker hours ago and she didn’t listen to me!”
“That is not true!”
“Yes, it is!”
-
“Wait, so we’re just going to give up?” Ellie’s hair is still slightly frazzled from tackling the suspect down, strands loose on her forehead and around her ears. She ran up and down four flights of stairs to catch her, but they’ve been given an order to push the case to another day with another lead. “What about Sugar Honey?”
“We can’t catch anyone higher up the food chain if she doesn’t consent to wearing a wire.”
“So sneak one on her!” The Director raises his eyebrows.
“Bishop.” She snaps around, eagerly awaiting Gibbs’s cowboy orders. “Go home. Get some sleep.”
“What? I can’t believe you’re actually agreeing with this.”
“Ellie,” Nick says, coming to her supposed rescue. There’s a flicker of hope in her eyes, and he hesitates to kill it. But he has to. He stands up, and immediately yelps and whines. Guiltily, he savors the look of concern she gives him. “Actually, could you drive me home? I think I twisted my ankle when we were chasing down Sugar Honey.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Ellie pouts. It maybe makes his stomach flutter, which is stupid, because Nick doesn’t feel things like that.
“You know me. Stoic face and all. I could get stabbed and none of you would know.”
“You know, that’s not a good thing.” She grabs his car keys from his jacket and puts his arm around her shoulders.
Bishop throws a stern look to the Director and Gibbs. Their bosses look half-confused, half-amused; Nick avoids Gibbs’s knowing look. “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She walks him to his car. He feels warm and lonely all at once, because her phone rings two more times.
Nick plops down on the passenger seat, and Ellie wrenches the car into ignition, and says with no small amount of strife, “I know you’re lying and I’m either taking you to your apartment or back to the club. Your choice.”
Um. “Hey, let’s not do anything dangerously impulsive here.”
“Me? Impulsive? What about you?”
“What? When have I ever done anything dangerous or impulsive?”
“You stole a truck and totaled it when you were chasing down a suspect last month. Gibbs was already waiting on another block to cut him off.”
“Well, at least I didn’t get hurt.”
“You had a concussion and I had to wake you up every hour that night.”
They’re already out of the Navy Yard, almost ten over the speed limit, and going in the opposite direction of his apartment.
“Okay, I’m sorry I lied about my ankle. But Bishop.” He’s not sure how to say it, so what leaves his mouth is a sound of frustration. “You can’t dismantle the mafia with just this one case. These things take time. One Sugar Honey confession was the best we could do today. And that’s okay. But we’ll catch another one tomorrow, or maybe next week, and the week after that.”
The car slows down; Ellie’s pout becomes more pronounced. The sudden U-turn makes him clutch at the dashboard and pray for his life.
“Fine,” Ellie says. “But — ”
“Tomorrow, I will help you possibly arrest a drug dealer, that will lead us to the drug supplier, that will lead us to the boss.”
She nods, hands tightly holding the steering wheel. There’s glitter in her hair and streaks of paint on her jeans. They’ve barely slept in the past two days, driving each other insane. 
“I can take the couch for a few hours and then we’ll be on our way. We both need to rest.”
Ellie doesn’t reply.
“If you don’t crash at my place, I’ll call Gibbs and tell him you’re going back to the club.”
Ellie protests for the rest of the car ride, but Nick doesn’t budge an inch.
-
The stakeout resumes peacefully. Gibbs and Vance were right: the dealers are spooked and no deals occur for the next week.
Bishop doesn’t spend every single moment on her phone, so at least there’s that. He can’t deny the twinge of longing every time he sees her eyes brighten at the sound of another text.
Still, even that is nothing compared to the ache he feels when she yawns and rubs her eyes. It’s the type of case that makes her want to prove herself, to risk everything to accomplish her ambitions, to run after something without a thought of the consequences. He knows the feeling. He has that feeling every time a kid is involved.
So he triples the bags of junk food on the floor of the moldy apartment. He lets her rest a little more when it’s his watch. She curls up in the blanket she stole from his apartment and sighs in her sleep.
They’re both exhausted, so their prank war grinds to a halt. Nick’s exasperated, and he doesn’t reply to any of Ziva’s requests for updates. Ellie’s smile is something admirably distracting and infuriating, especially when it’s not directed to him.
-
Here’s the thing, though: Nick can’t imagine when Ellie had time to go on a date with a Mark that he’s never met or heard of in the past few weeks. Before Operation Take DiGiorno’s to Prison, they had back-to-back murders that took a total of two weeks out of their lives. Before those, Nick went to pilates with her for three consecutive weekends. So whoever this Mark is, might be special to her. Someone she wants to keep to herself. Someone she wants to talk to all day, someone she wants to smile and laugh with, someone she wants to be with. It’s that simple.
It’s just not Nick.
-
The seaman in Interrogation still isn’t talking, but at least there’s something in the cocaine.
“Local PD’s been digging up everything they can about the drug ring for months, and this little sample here matches their signature packaging and purity. But I’m telling you, whoever hired their chemists needs to do a better job, cause this stuff ain’t pure at all.”
“Can we connect it to Joey or the uncle?”
“I’m so glad you asked. We, in fact, do have a way to arrest them, thanks to Kasie — ”
“Don’t talk about yourself in the third person.”
“Okay, someone’s grumpy! DiGiorno’s olive oil company bought bulk chemicals, which are being delivered to this address. We’ve got dimethyl sulfoxide, tetrahydrofuran — ”
“English, Kasie.”
“Coke. They’re making coke. Trust me, those materials are not extra virgin.”
He grunts out a thanks and swirls around, ready to leave.
“Woooaaahhh there, son.” Kasie holds her hands out in front of her to tame him. “What’s going on with you, Nicholas?”
“What? Nothing!”
“Okay. Then I guess it has nothing to do with you and your feelings.”
“What? Nothing’s up with Bishop and me!”
“I didn’t say anything about Bishop.”
“Okay,” Nick chuckles, searching for an exit route that may or may not involve rolling past Kasie in a very ninja-like manner before booking it out of the building. “You said something, I said something, now we’re both confused, and I gotta go now, bye!”
-
McGee’s hawk eyes peer at him when Bishop retreats to the break room again. It makes Nick squirm in his seat and try to pry his gaze away from her empty desk.
“Is something going on between you and Bishop?”
“Uh, no, why, did she say something?” He crosses his arms to quell the sound of his heart.
McGee scoffs. “I mean. You guys have barely talked since you came back from the stakeout.”
“Well. I don’t need to talk to her. All the time.”
“But you do.”
Nick makes a face. Bishop strolls back into the bullpen, carefree and light, and he shuts his mouth.
“What do we got?” Gibbs says, and McGee has no choice but to brush this under the rug.
-
It’s Day Ten, more accurately Night Ten, and they’re sitting in the car, driving to the warehouse where they’ll arrest Joey and his uncle. She’s wearing a vest and he has the urge to clean his gun before a shootout. But they’ll be fine.
He glances at her tied-up hair and the clench of her jaw. His hands tighten on the steering wheel, because he wants to hold her face in his hands and tangle his fingers in her hair. He wants to tell her something he can barely admit to himself.
She says nothing. The phone doesn’t ring. He keeps driving.
-
He forgets she has a vest on. He forgets everything, really, when he sees Ellie go down in the middle of the raid, and Joey starts running away. Gibbs yells at him to call an ambulance before he and McGee chase after the idiot who shot his partner.
Nick scrambles to her side, vision blurring, and he has more trouble breathing than she does when he reaches her. “Bishop, El, you’re gonna be okay, alright?”
Ellie groans as he slices her vest open. The bullet clatters off the Kevlar.
“Nick,” Ellie’s saying. “Nick, I’m fine.” His hands hover, barely brushing over her arms, neck, head — I have to check for concussion — and it does nothing to reassure him, until her hands fold into his. “Nick.”
She looks at him, mouth parted, cheeks flushed. Her ribs are probably bruised, if not broken. Her hands are the only source of stability; every other part of him is shaking.
“You’re alright.”
Ellie breathes out a heavy sigh; it shakes like his legs quiver, and he has to kneel next to her. “I’m alright.”
-
Along with the DEA, they confiscate every last bit of cocaine from the warehouse, effectively crippling the crime family’s major source of money. Joey rats on every aspect of his uncle’s business for a shorter sentence. As the EMTs are wrapping her ribs up, Nick holds his hand up for Ellie to slap and says, “We took DiGiorno’s to prison!”
He offers her his arm and a ride home. She graciously accepts, and the smile is his, again, for now.
But he can’t not say anything now. She almost — she almost. There’s nothing else to say about that.
So Nick says, “So, you’re going home to Mark today? You got a hot date?”
He’ll get over that lump in his throat, that spike in his pulse eventually. She’s alive, and he’ll be fine.
He doesn’t expect her to start laughing, only to be interrupted by a wince and a tender hand on her left side. “Nick, who do you think Mark is?”
“Uh.” There’s a dark hole of miscalculation, the feeling of falling down the cliff of Being Wrong. “Your hot new date you kept texting over the past, like, five days?”
Nick rolls his eyes. “Stop laughing, you’ll make your ribs worse.”
“It’s — ” Ellie takes a deep breath and pulls out her phone. She scrolls, and Nick’s about to say something about not wanting to read her love letters to Mark when:
Auntie Ellie, thanks for my birthday gifts! I miss you so much.
The voice can’t be older than five, with a light stammer and a lisp. Nick takes his eyes off the road to gape at a boy with two missing front teeth, and his heart both soars and sinks. Someone honks behind them, and he steps on the gas pedal, startled that he’s stopped at a green light.
“Well.”
“He turned four last week, and my brother’s been letting him call or text me videos every day. They’re stuck in Oklahoma and they miss me.” He can hear her shrug, the fabric of her jacket rustling against the car’s leather seat, but he keeps his eyes on the road. “I haven’t been home in almost two years.”
“I’m sorry.” It punctuates the silence that follows, leaving them both speechless, wondering, wishing.
“Were you jealous?” Ellie whispers.
“Yes.” He can’t stop himself. Not anymore. Nick floors the brake and looks at his passenger’s seat, red light shining on her, everything else dark and unimaginably lonely. “Yes.”
Ellie nods, then smiles. “Okay.”
-
They arrive the next morning together. McGee smirks at his phone. Kasie’s eyes switch between them, back and forth, before she raises an eyebrow and glares at Nick, threatening and protective. Gibbs says nothing. Nick smiles the whole morning, because he still tastes her lipstick on his teeth and feels her hair in his fingers.
-
To: big wuss, 10:20
Congratulations. You aren’t a bigger wuss than Tony.
To: ninja lady, 10:25
ha. thanks
for everything, i mean, i guess.
To: big wuss, 10:26
You’re very welcome, Nicholas.
fin.
14 notes · View notes
karajaynetoday · 4 years
Text
everybody's got their demons, even wide awake or dreaming | part one
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Photo credit: Jess Gleeson 
Hello friends! Hope you’re having a lovely day wherever you are in the world. Thank you to everyone who voted in my little Google form thing on what they’d like to see me write next. Here’s Part One of my 5SOS x music journalist story. It’s a little angsty, and as the first chapter this is a lot of introduction to the OC and her story, but I hope you like it! It’s the first time I’ve written an OC into a fic, so I’d love to know your thoughts and if you’re interested in reading more about Lizzie and her adventures interviewing 5SOS.
Shout outs to @wheniminouterspace and @calumrose​ for helping me sense-check this concept, and @spicycal for giving me feedback on it in its draft stages. You’re all gems! 
Word count: 5.1k
Warnings: Fem!OC, minor swearing
More writing here | send thoughts/feedback/suggestions here | if you’d like to be on my taglist go here
Lizzie Lawson was having a bit of a day. Her train had been late, she dropped her coffee moments after receiving it from the cute barista downstairs (and broke her favourite keep cup in the process), and her work computer had decided to run updates the moment she sat down at her desk. Maybe she shouldn’t have bothered to get out of bed this morning.
Her colleagues were tapping away at their keyboards, answering phone calls, and discussing upcoming story ideas with each other - the usual tasks, especially for a Monday morning. Lizzie, computerless and caffeine deprived, had to settle for a cup of instant coffee from the kitchenette, and had taken to tidying up her desk while her computer was restarting over and over again but still somehow not ready for use. She was on the floor, sorting through the snacks in her bottom desk drawer (crackers that were two months’ past their expiry date, some gummy worms, and what seemed like hundreds of cans of tuna) when James, the music editor, stuck his head out of his office and called for her.
“Lawson! Where are you?” James sounded confused. He could’ve sworn he’d seen Lizzie at her desk moments ago, and then suddenly she popped her head up like a meerkat.
“Jimbo! Here. What’s crack-a-lackin?” Lizzie responded, standing up and brushing herself off as she headed towards where James was standing in his office doorway.
“Got a pitch for ya. Step into my office, if you’re finished with your spring clean.” James chuckled as he stepped back inside and sat down on the couch opposite his desk. 
A number of journalism awards were displayed on the shelf above the couch, and the floor to ceiling window overlooked Sydney’s CBD and its tall, grey buildings, with a glimpse of the harbour ocean in the distance. Lizzie had to admit she’d imagined herself in James’ desk chair more than a few times; the music editor of one of Australia’s leading youth and pop culture publishing companies, regularly travelling the world to interview award-winning artists, and assigning and guiding well-crafted investigative pieces on the entertainment industry and those within in. 
But, in reality, Lizzie had only recently worked her way up to being in the music department, after a couple of years on the news desk and a series of casual internships at different publications around the place. But music journalism, and the passion she had for live performances and watching artists grow and develop their sounds and aesthetics over their careers, was where Lizzie had always wanted her career to go. She was grateful to James for having her on the team, but she also knew that he didn’t recruit just anyone - so her writing must’ve been strong enough to get her here. James was a good boss, salt of the earth, always had his team’s back, but he was also a little mysterious, and this morning’s meeting was one of those where his face was giving absolutely nothing away as Lizzie joined him on the couch in the office. 
“So, what’s up?” Lizzie said, trying to hide the nervousness in her voice.
“Well, Lawson. You’ve only been on deck for a few months, but turns out my gut instinct about you has paid off. That profile you did on the 1975 last month has gotten some good feedback and traction out and about.” James spoke in a measured tone, pulling his laptop off the coffee table and opening it.
“Oh! Well, that’s… good, right?” Lizzie still couldn’t figure out exactly why she was in James’ office. Or why she was so nervous. 
“Correct, it is good. It’s been great to see you come into your own a little bit, and develop your interview style. I also really appreciated you stepping in to cover the Matt Corby interview for Hannah the other day, when she had that stomach bug.” James continued, seemingly searching for an email or something on his laptop as he spoke. 
“No worries! Hannah’s notes were really thorough, plus I definitely had a Matt Corby phase when he was on Australian Idol back in 2006! Oof, that fringe, you know?” Lizzie cringed internally when she heard herself starting to babble. 
James snorted, before clearing his throat. “I’m sure Matt was glad the 2006 hairstyle didn’t take up too many words in the final profile piece. He was pretty happy with it though, and his management were too, according to the label. So happy, in fact, that they’re requested you to profile another one of their artists.”
James had Lizzie’s full attention now, and she still couldn’t read his expression. “Really? Me? Who’s the artist?” She asked, trying not to get too excited too soon.
“Yes, indeed, you. 5 Seconds of Summer, or 5SOS. They’ve got a new album due out in a month or so, and their publicist is keen to fly you out to LA for a few weeks to follow them around while they wrap things up in the studio, and do a profile piece on their journey to date. Are you familiar with their stuff? They’re offering us an exclusive, something about the album being linked to their homeland or something, so they wanted to go with an Australian media outlet first.” James set his laptop back down on the coffee table and angled it so Lizzie could see an email on the screen that had a few lines of text and a photo of a band onstage.
5SOS. Was Lizzie familiar? Oh yes, she was familiar. Lizzie Lawson hailed from the western suburbs, and 5SOS was the area’s biggest success story. Aussie boys made good, with millions of albums sold, billions of song streams, thousands of concerts played all around the world, that was their career to date. But for Lizzie, 5SOS were always a bit closer to home. She’d attended the same high school as three of the band members, and Michael Clifford was someone she called her best friend, once upon a time. Ashton had also befriended Lizzie’s older brother Lachlan when they’d worked together at KFC. That was years ago now, and they’d all fallen out of touch, because sometimes that’s just the way the universe works. You grow up and you move on and you don’t keep the same friends, because sometimes they move to the other side of the world and get super famous as successful musicians. Or something like that. Even if they know your deepest secrets, or biggest fears, or hopes and dreams, or you trust them more than anything, sometimes they still leave you. 
Lizzie’s previous state of intrigue quickly became panic, because what if she wasn’t actually being chosen based on the merit of her work? What if the 5SOS team knew about her connection to the band, and were going to use it to manipulate her writing in some way? What if it was all a ploy to get her and Michael in the same room so he could finally call her out on what had gone down between them all those years ago? What if - 
“Lawson! You on planet earth still, or wait?” James snapped his fingers in front of Lizzie’s face to get her attention. She shook her head to clear it, and wrung her hands together in her lap.
“Yep, I’m familiar with their work. A little fuzzy on the most recent work, but I have a bit of knowledge on a lot of their early stuff. And Youngblood, of course. Everyone knows Youngblood. ARIA song of the year, a billion streams, etc etc.” Lizzie spoke, meeting James’ gaze as he cocked his head at her curiously. He knew Lizzie had a tendency to get a little nervous when she was put on the spot, but there was something about her right now that was a little more unsettled than usual that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Good. Well, if you’re down, the label will cover three weeks accommodation in Los Angeles. Labels don’t usually do that kind of thing, but their manager is super keen for you to get enough quality time with the band to build up a solid profile piece. We’ll cover your daily expenses, I’ll send you instructions for the claiming app, and then we just need your passport to get the flights booked. Sound okay?” 
“Y-yep. Yes. Okay. Right. When would I be leaving?” Lizzie pinched her thigh through her jeans to double check that she wasn’t dreaming, and that yes, this was actually happening. 
“Friday midday. We’ll put some feelers out in LA, and see if there’s any other interviews you can do while you’re there, but your focus will be on 5SOS because they’re picking up the bill for your stay. But that being said, don’t let that sway what you write. They’ve requested you because they like your deep, detailed, open style of profiling, so don’t be afraid to ask some curly questions to get the answers that will craft the right piece, you know?” James spoke firmly, looking pointedly at Lizzie who quickly nodded in response.
“Right, well, I’ll cc you into this email chain with their publicist and manager, and we’ll go from there. You can hand over your other pieces to Hannah, you’ll need to spend the next few days prepping for LA and doing whatever research you need to feel ready. You’ve got this, Lizzie. I know you can do a great job.” James was trying to be encouraging, as he stood up and opened the door to his office, but Lizzie’s heart was pounding with nerves and she barely hear his words. 
She walked back to her desk in a daze, and Hannah had to literally poke Lizzie in her side to get her attention and ask what James had said in the meeting. A few excited squeals and a bear hug later, Hannah was off and running talking about lists of things Lizzie needed to organise before her international adventure was due to begin in a few days’ time. Lizzie, on the other hand, still couldn’t believe it. What the fuck was happening?
--
The next few days flew by in a haze of emails, life admin, last minute shopping trips and a lot of deep breathing on Lizzie’s part, and before she knew it, she was wrangling her suitcase out of an Uber and into the international terminal at Sydney Airport. Lizzie, as a generally anxious person, had arrived the full three hours early for her flight, but her parents had treated her to a flight lounge guest pass (because they wanted her to know they were proud), so she was able to deal with her nerves by eating far too many complimentary croissants and hash browns. 
Soon enough, the time to board the plane arrived, and Lizzie was grateful that she ended up in an empty row of seats, by some miracle. Praise be to the airline gods, or whichever higher power had decided she’d be able to at least try and get some sleep in the next fourteen hours. She’d set her phone and watch forward to Los Angeles time, so she could try and adjust her body clock accordingly, which meant that she’d have to stay up for a few hours at least.
Lizzie tried to be productive, and tapped away at her research notes on her laptop for a little while, before she found herself opening up the band’s instagram page in her browser. The four men staring back at Lizzie through the screen seemed a million miles away from the gangly, excitable teenagers she’d known all those years ago. There was an interesting intensity about them in the photograph, steely gazes and defined bodies under carefully selected clothing, but there was also a peacefulness in their poses beside one another. Like being together, in this moment captured minutes before heading onstage, was the most natural thing in the world. Lizzie found her eyes drawn towards Michael; his dirty blonde hair swept across his forehead (not dissimilar to the style he’d had in their high school days, to be honest), and it was accompanied by some scruffy facial hair and a dangly cross earring in one ear. His grey-green eyes seemed to peer right into her soul, and Lizzie involuntarily shivered at the thought of seeing him again in person in a day or so. 
She was still anxious about whether or not this entire thing was a scam, but nonetheless, she was going to try her darndest to be a consummate professional, and write the best profile story of her life. In her research, Lizzie had reviewed some previous 5SOS interviews, and she’d cringed her way through their Rolling Stone interview from many years prior. She remembered reading it at the time it was published, unable to believe some of the words attributed to the boys she’d once called her friends, and the intense aftermath that followed. Understandably, they’d avoided in-depth profile interviews since, so Lizzie was incredibly curious as to why they’d changed their mind. Why now? Why her? She closed her laptop and drifted into sleep, curled up across three airplane seats and tucked under a thin blanket. 
Lizzie’s shoulders and neck were stiff when she awoke, an hour or so before her flight was due to land. She used the in-flight wifi to check her emails quickly, and noted a new one from 5SOS’s publicist Danielle, which welcomed Lizzie to Los Angeles and explained that she should catch a taxi to her accommodation at the address listed, and that she should give her a call once she was checked in. Right. That seemed straight forward enough.
LAX customs were intimidating as ever (god, Lizzie was so nervous), but Lizzie made it through without incident and was able to quickly make her way into a cab with a driver who seemed familiar with her accommodation address. They drove her to a boutique-looking hotel, and when Lizzie checked in and made her way up to her room, she was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. A queen-sized bed, a good desk for working at, a nice view from her balcony of the Hollywood Hills, a small kitchenette with a fridge and microwave, and a glorious bathroom that had a very enticing bath tub in it (Lizzie’s shoulders and neck were already thankful for the idea of being able to soak in some nice hot water for a while). 
After checking the room for serial killers (better to be safe than sorry, right?) Lizzie had a quick shower and changed out of her travel trackies and oversized hoodie into a pair of jeans, a clean shirt and a blazer, before opening up her phone and scrolling down to Danielle’s contact. A few deep breaths were required before Lizzie built up the courage to press “call”.
“This is Danielle!” A cheery American accent answered on the other end of the line.
“H-hi Danielle, this is Lizzie, from Junkee Australia. You said in my email I should give you a call once I was all checked in, and I am, so…” Lizzie found herself giggling nervously and facepalmed.
“Lizzie, of course! How was your flight? Long and boring?”
“Yep, that about sums it up!” Danielle’s enthusiasm made Lizzie feel like she had to perk herself up a bit in conversation.
“Well, I’m sure you’re gagging for a nap, but we’ve got to get you adjusted to the timezone so we can make the most of your time here. I’m just finishing up something in the office, but I can swing by your hotel in about 45 minutes, and we can go over your story pitch and the band schedule for the next few weeks, and figure out your interview time slots and other things you can go along to observe, if that works for you?” Lizzie could hear Danielle’s keyboard clacking as she spoke.
“Sure, well, you have my number now, so just text me when you get here. I’ll try my best not to nap in the meantime.” Lizzie’s somewhat dry response got a laugh out of Danielle, who agreed and bid her farewell, ending the call.
Placing her phone down on the bedside table, Lizzie looked around the hotel room that was set to be her home away from home for the better part of the next month, and spotted a coffee machine on top of the mini fridge. If she was really going to keep her no-nap promise, caffeine was definitely in order. 
True to her word, Danielle arrived at the hotel within the hour, and soon Lizzie found herself sat beside Danielle on a fancy couch tucked in a corner of the hotel lobby. Danielle had opened up her laptop, and also pulled a plastic folder of documents out of her tote bag.
“Okay, so… I’m sure you’ve done your own research, but here’s a few hard copies of the band bio, album press release, and a few other tidbits from the label, along with a hard copy of the band schedule. It’s all confidential and coded, the electronic version I’ve emailed you will have the proper locations for everything, but I thought a print out might be handy anyway. The boys are recording some stuff at the studio Calum has at his house tomorrow, so I figured we could introduce you there and then after that figure out what else you’d like to get done. There’s an industry showcase for some of the new songs at the end of the week, and then they’re doing various promo and album prep things, finalising mixes, photoshoots, etc, so there’s a bit of variety for you. Any initial thoughts on how you want to do the interviews for your profile?” Danielle rattled off, gazing at Lizzie expectantly when she finished speaking.
Lizzie blinked at her a few times before collecting herself. “In my research, I found it really interesting to hear the band and some of the fans talking about how 5SOS has evolved into the collective effort of four individual artists, not just the band as one artistic music entity, so I was hoping, if possible, to interview them individually, as well as observing them as a group. Would.. Would that be okay, do you think?” 
Danielle pursed her lips, before breaking out into a smile. 
“I think that sounds exactly like something the band would be willing to do. Damn, Matt Emsell was right - you do know your stuff.” She chuckled, handing the folder of documents over to Lizzie and pulling out the schedule that was on top.
“So studio at Calum’s tomorrow from 10am, I’ll swing by and collect you so we can do introductions, I’ll stick around for a bit just to make sure you’re all good but otherwise I’m just going to let you do your thing. The band have been doing this for long enough now, they don’t need their publicist hovering.”
The curiosity was killing Lizzie. She couldn’t not ask. 
“Danielle, I’ve got to ask this, sorry. Do the band… know me? Know that I’m the one coming to interview them?” Lizzie managed to get out, avoiding eye contact.
“What do you mean?” Danielle cocked her head to one side, clearly confused at the question. “I sent them the Matt Corby piece you did, and they liked that, so that was one of the reasons we asked you out here. So they’re familiar with your work, if that’s what you’re asking?”
“No, um… oh god, I’ve made this super awkward now.” Lizzie laughed dryly, wringing her hands together. “I mean, I know them. Personally. Or at least I used to. I’m from Sydney, and I went to school with Luke, and Calum, and… Michael. So I was just wondering,  um, if they realised that it was me and that was part of why I was asked to come to LA for this…Not really sure why that would make them choose me, but I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page before tomorrow.” Lizzie finally dared to look up at Danielle, whose expression was unreadable.
“Hmm, well, that is interesting. As far as I know, that wasn’t a factor at all. We all genuinely liked your writing style, so whether or not the boys made the connection, I have no idea. They’re not super keen on any irrelevant personal life stuff making it into this piece though, so if this is going to be a problem for you, we should deal with it now.” Her tone was slightly less warm than before, and Lizzie could sense the protective publicist side of Danielle kicking in.
“Definitely not a problem. I entirely intend to be fully professional, and like you said, my writing will speak for itself. Just wanted to put it all out there. Not a problem for me.” Lizzie spoke up, willing herself to sound more confident than she felt.
“Good. We have no problems here then. I’ve got to run, but text me with any questions, otherwise I’ll see you at 9.30am tomorrow for the drive to Calum’s!” Danielle’s tone was nice and bright again, as she shut her laptop and gathered her belongings, patting Lizzie’s shoulder in what she assumed was some sort of attempt at calming her nerves.
It didn’t work though. Not a problem for Lizzie? Bullshit. Not a problem for 5SOS, and Michael in particular? Seemed unlikely. 
--
Lizzie was worried she’d have a restless night’s sleep because of her overwhelming anxiety about the next day’s reunion, but the exhaustion from her travelling overtook her and she almost slept through her alarm. A quick shower and a shot of espresso later and Lizzie was downstairs waiting for Danielle to pick her up to head over to meet the band.
“Morning! How’d you sleep?” Danielle chirped as she rolled into the car park, her car window down. 
“Very deeply, thank you! The room is really comfortable. Thanks again for organising.” Lizzie mentally urged herself to keep up the small talk as a way of hiding her nerves.
The car ride over was mostly quiet, but when they pulled up outside of what Lizzie assumed was Calum’s house, she definitely felt like she was about to vomit.
“Just so you know, I flagged our conversation last night with the band. About your pitch around the individual interviews, and also about your little… connection to them. Ashton didn’t seem to think it was a problem, so it should all be fine.” Danielle mused, as she opened her car door and hopped out. All Lizzie could do was nod, because her throat was dry and she was starting to panic. She blindly followed Danielle through the front gate and around the side of the house to a building in the backyard, Lizzie strained to hear what sounded like raised, male voices floating towards them as they approached. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it didn’t entirely sound positive.
Danielle knocked loudly on the door and shot Lizzie a reassuring smile, before the shouting subsided and it swung open. Calum Hood stood in the doorway, and Lizzie sucked in a breath. It’d been eight years, maybe more since she’d last seen Calum, and even then, had they spoken? She couldn’t remember. 
Calum smiled at Danielle, and then his eyes flickered over to Lizzie, not quite carrying the same happiness, but not entirely losing it either.
“Morning, ladies. Welcome to casa di Calum, come on in.” He spoke with that scratchy, deep voice of his that Lizzie had reacquainted herself with when watching hours of interviews during her research. 
Danielle stepped passed Calum into the room, and she indicated for Lizzie to follow, which she did. Lizzie could feel Calum’s gaze on her as she brushed past him, but the minute she stepped inside, any sense of warmth or welcome she’d felt before vanished. 
Luke and Ashton were standing over by the sound recording panel, turning to look at Lizzie and Danielle as they entered. Lizzie thought she saw a hint of a smile on Luke’s face (they had survived Year 8 Maths together, after all… that had to count for something, right?), but Ashton was unreadable.
Entirely obvious, though, was the look of bitter disdain on Michael Clifford’s face when Lizzie finally spotted him hunched over on the couch along the wall. Those grey-green eyes were staring her down with a harsh glare. It had familiarity about it, Lizzie realised, but not in a good way. 
Danielle cleared her throat in the silence, and turned to Lizzie.
“Well, I believe introductions might not be required, but in the interest of professionalism and courtesy - “ Lizzie didn’t miss Danielle’s pointed glance towards Michael, who was still scowling silently towards everyone - “Lizzie Lawson from Junkee, I would like you to meet Calum Hood, Ashton Irwin, Luke Hemmings and Michael Clifford, also collectively known as 5 Seconds of Summer or 5SOS.” 
Lizzie waved, and then immediately cursed herself for being so goddamn awkward.  She received a nod of recognition from Ashton, and small smiles from Luke and Calum. From Michael, more scowling. This was going to be a long three weeks. 
“So, Lizzie, why don’t you go through the pitch for the profile that we discussed yesterday? The boys already have a bit of an idea, but I’m sure they’d love to hear it from you.” Danielle was being overly encouraging, but it worked, and Lizzie took a deep breath before speaking.
“Thanks, Danielle. And thank you to you guys, honestly. I know this is a little strange for all of us -”
“Fucking oath it is.” Lizzie heard Michael mutter under his breath, but she continued, undeterred. 
“But, I’m really excited to have the opportunity to interview you and pull together this story. Especially on behalf of the Australian music media. I know they haven’t always given you the recognition you deserve, but I think this piece is a chance to overcome that. Anyway, the specific pitch I’d love to go with is reflective of you as individual artists, as well as the collective band group. If it’s suitable, it’d be great to have the chance to speak to each of you one-on-one as well as a group, to give a holistic view of your journeys as people and as musicians and what you’re trying to achieve with this album. So… yeah…” Lizzie trailed off nervously, clenching her hands at her sides.
“I love it. We’re happy you’re here, Lizzie. I really loved the Matt Corby piece Danielle sent us, and like you said, it was really important for us to have the perspective of an Australian journalist for this story and where we’re at right now.” Ashton’s calm voice broke the silence, as he nodded at Lizzie in agreeance. Luke and Calum nodded too, and Lizzie tried not to look towards Michael because no doubt he was still glaring at her.
“Great! Everyone’s on the same page. I have to dash off to a meeting, but Lizzie has my number if she needs it, otherwise all of you please behave and don’t scare her off, nor say anything that means I’ll have to destroy her tape recorder. Sound good? Good!” Danielle rattled off quickly, moving out the door and shutting it behind her. 
The tension in the air was thick, and it was all seething from Michael’s direction towards Lizzie. She closed her eyes for a moment, before reaching into her bag and pulling out her phone, notebook and pen. She spotted a chair behind her, and turned back towards Luke and Ashton.
“Well, where do you want to start? A group sit down, some general thoughts on the journey so far and what the album experience has been like?” Lizzie offered, trying to make herself sound enthusiastic, but also in control and like she knew what she was doing.
Luke, Calum and Ashton all murmured in agreeance, and moved themselves over to sit by Michael on the couch, while Lizzie dragged the chair she’d spotted over to sit facing them.
“Right. All good if I audio record this?” She asked, hitting record on her voicenotes app after three heads nodded at her.
“So, the album. Where did it begin? Did anyone or anything influence or kick off the sonic direction or the start of the exploratory process?”
The conversation was flowing quite well, Lizzie though. Ashton dominated most of the responses to her questions, but Luke and Calum chipped in their perspectives throughout. Michael didn’t say a word, even when Calum poked him in the side, and instead of glaring at Lizzie he was now staring blankly at the wall over her shoulder. An improvement, sort of, but still not ideal from a journalist and interviewee perspective, let alone when the interviewee was someone who used to be Lizzie’s best friend. 
Before she knew it, an hour had past, and Ashton stood, remembering a meeting they had scheduled with the label and their management team, and bringing the interview to a close. 
As Lizzie was packing up her equipment, she cautiously brought up the topic of the one on one interviews. 
“So, does anyone in particular have free time in the next few days, so I can start on the individual profiling part of the story?” Lizzie asked, her tone hopeful.
Michael’s response was to push straight past her and walk out of the studio, muttering to himself and slamming the door as he went. The loud noise made Lizzie flinch, and she realised her heart was racing and her hands were a little shaky. 
“I’ve got time, LL Cool J. I’ll meet you at Joan’s on Third for lunch, say 1pm?”  Lizzie smiled at the pld nickname Calum slipped into his quiet response to her question. 
“Works for me, C Dizzle Swizzle. Thanks again for your time today, I really appreciate it. Not to sound like a broken record, but I’m really excited for this piece and the chance to tell your story.” Lizzie found herself grinning like an idiot as she met Calum’s warm gaze, and noted that Ashton and Luke were also smiling at her.
“We’re excited too, Lizzie. Even if… some of us might not quite be as enthusiastic as they should be. But, don’t worry. He’ll come round.” It was Luke that spoke this time, his striking blue eyes somehow staring straight into Lizzie’s soul as he looked at her. 
“Here’s hoping.” Lizzie tried not to sound too dull in her response, but it was a challenge. 
Because honestly, how the fuck was she going to do a profile on all four members of 5 Seconds of Summer, if one of them could barely stand being in the same room as her?
Time will tell, Lizzie thought to herself as she walked out of the door to Calum’s studio and into the warm California sunlight. Time will tell. 
Taglist: @suchalonelysunflower​ @blackbutterfliescal​ @redrattlers​ @loveroflrh​ @spicycal​ @notinthesameguey​ @metalandboybands​
More writing here | send thoughts/feedback/suggestions here | if you’d like to be on my taglist go here
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asharmhole · 3 years
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@bluespruce 💌 💌 tysm for tagging me in this 30 question thingy(?)<3 as you can tell i love to talk about myself on my blog so this is perfect! i will put it under a read-more tho to spare those who have something better to do than read through my personality info dump!!!!!!
(1.) name / nickname:
uhhh i go by mar and don’t rly wanna share my ~real~ name
(2.) gender:
i....... guess she/they tbh but i don’t really care about pronouns as long as you’re respectful about it :)
(3.) star sign:
im a sag!!!!! my moon is cancer tho so i live in an eternal rollercoaster of emotions every single day
(4.) height:
171cm i guess? no idea what that is in feet
(5.) time:
6:55pm as i’m writing this
(6.) birthday:
13th of december!!!!!!! acab baby
(7.) favorite bands/groups:
UHM.......... the 1975, the neighbourhood, danger incorperated, $uicideboy$, pvris, mgmt, mother mother, chase atlantic, nothing,nowhere, the front bottoms, walk the moon AND the script
(8.) favorite solo artist:
oh god........ lil peep, blackbear, convolk, sewerperson, lil skele, glaive, mitski, yung hurn, osquinn, wstdyth, phoebe bridgers, freddie dredd, edo saiya, rico nasty, oliver tree, troye sivan, raleigh ritchie, the weeknd, brennan savage, wilow, mac miller, lauv, au/ra, kevin abstract, earl sweatshirt and denzel curry!!!!!!
(9.) song stuck in my head:
i had apple cider by beabadoodee in there for quite a while now
(10.) last movie:
i rarely watch movies...... but it was probably soul (2020) on disney+ with my family a week or so ago
(11.) last show:
DUCKTALES............ I AM STILL IN LOVE... also cried when i found out it was cancelled after the third season f uck
(12.) when did i create this blog:
spring of 2019 i think?
(13.) what do i post:
i almost nothing.......... i’m only here for the experience of seeing shreds of everyone on the planet and reblog them to my blog when they make me feel something... to just . look at it and see who i am
(14.) last thing googled:
“darkwing duck how many seasons” LMAO
(15.) other blogs:
@throughthelenseofgod is my side-blog but i use it as a inspiration board for a novel idea i drafted during an all-nighter a few weeks ago dhfkhkdhksh no one rly follows it and i rarely reblog much but who knows when i get my ass together i might actually do smth with it
(16.) do i get asks:
uhm not that often but when i do...... my heart sparkles a little<3
(17.) why did i choose this url:
this is like , my fifth time explaining it,,, , but basically it’s ‘ash’ ‘arm’ and ‘hole’ and do that math however you will
(18.) following:
203 at the moment but i might need to clean through again soon
(19.) followers:
322! i sometimes feel a bit weird not having all mutuals on my blog but if someone is interested in me/my blog apart from being mutuals then i don’t see why i shouldn’t let them follow me lmao
(20.) average hours of sleep:
at the moment like 7hrs but that’s the average........... it’s always either 4hrs or 10 lmao there is no in-between for me
(21.) lucky number:
13 LMAO and otherwise 1975
(22.) instruments:
i can’t play anything............. but better this way i think
(23.) what am i wearing:
hello kitty sweatpants with a simple white turtleneck......... also really stylish avocado socks dhdjhkhfdkh
(24.) dream job:
i just really want to go into the direction of journalism, but i could also see being a translator or subtitler(? forgot the proper term) so idrk yet
(25.) dream trip:
taiwan tbh,,, ,, it looks so gorgeous and i heard taiwanese people are super friendly and the food is amazing as well!
(26.) favorite food:
hmmmmm i really like almost anything with potatoes but apart from that spaghetti either aglio e olio style or with pesto
(27.) nationality
swiss gang unite
(28.) favorite song:
how can u ask this of me,, ,,, bc if by favorite you mean most-listened-to then i would be TO FEEL ALIVE by kali uchies but idk if that’s right
(29.) last book read:
uh the communist manifesto actually LMAO
(30.) three fictional universes you'd like to live in:
honestly like........ cartoon universes............... ducktales and gravity falls for sure bc i feel like i could get some of my childhood back there and maybe also bojack horseman bc i would fit in perfectly there
ALSO tagging my mutuals,, , , i’m so bad at tagging bc i never know who is bothered by it and who actually would like to do it :’//////////
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eldritch-obscuritea · 4 years
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The Fog In The Morning, Part 3
AN: Ahh, we’re finally almost done with the setup parts! Soon we’ll be approaching events more similar to what we know in the conventional Jeff the Killer story, albeit heavily modified cause I want to. Though don’t worry, more fun backstory tidbits will be tastefully employed in future parts too! Gotta leave stuff to discover and dramatically reveal, no? :P
Tags: @scary-lasagna, @habitradio, @peridoxal  (I feel like there’s some I forgot, sorry and please let me know X| )
Word Count: 985
Content: Some parent-kid tension, some insecurity, and a brief but moderately detailed mention of night terrors 
Part 2 Here!
“What do you mean we’ve gotta move?!” Jeff shouted. He was pacing quickly, only taking five or six steps before he had to turn around in the cramped living room. Liu watched, perched on a salmon-pink loveseat. 
Mr. Woods sighed. “I know this is difficult, but it’s for the better.” Jeff scoffed. “Listen Jeff,” said their father, “I’ll have a much better position there, which means I won’t have to work as much. We’ll have a better house too.” He smiled wryly. “At the very least, you’ll be able to angrily pace much more effectively.” 
“You’re crazy if you think I want your stupid house,” muttered Jeff, but he did stop pacing. He grumpily slouched against the loveseat, looking at Liu. “C’mon bro, don’t you think this whole moving thing is bonkers?”
Liu shook his head. He didn’t really have any attachment to the fairly small, one-story building. Something in him was almost glad that they would be leaving. 
Jeff turned back to Mr. Woods. “Alright, what does Mom think? Not that we see her enough to remember she exists, that crazy-”
“Don’t speak about your mother like that.” Mr. Woods sighed again, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “She agrees that moving is a good idea.” 
Jeff threw his hands into the air, then stormed out of the room. Mr. Woods looked at Liu apologetically, but Liu just shrugged, stood up, and trotted after Jeff. 
Liu entered their room, stepping casually around the piles of dirty laundry scattered on the floor. Jeff had clambered up to his bunk bed, and the old mattress protested loudly as he fell back against it, scowling. 
“This is totally balls.” Jeff huffed, turning away from Liu. After a moment, he turned back towards him, eyebrows furrowed. “Say, why don’t you think this is balls?” 
Liu shrugged. “I mean, I don’t have any friends here.” Jeff scoffed in disbelief, but Liu continued. “No really, not anyone I’d really miss. At least it’d be a new start, yknow?”
“Yeah, but I really liked my start here,” Jeff muttered. 
“Well, yeah.” Liu leaned cautiously against the bunk bed frame, glancing at Jeff. “But you’re so popular. I’m sure you’ll be able to make lots of friends in no time.” 
“I’m not.” 
This response surprised Liu a little, but not much. Sometimes he forgot that Jeff was his younger brother, and despite all the young boy’s bluster he did actually look up to his older sibling. Liu shivered slightly. 
“Well it’s not like we have a choice really,” said Liu hesitantly. “I mean, what would we even do?”
Jeff sighed. “I guess.” He turned back over, and Liu stood on his bunk so his eyes were barely able to see over Jeff’s mattress. The corner of a sketchbook peered back at him from over Jeff’s shoulder. 
Liu knew that Jeff had a sketchbook, though granted he had never been allowed to look inside it. Granted, that was technically only when Jeff was around. Otherwise, Liu knew that he always stuffed it in the gap between his bunk and the wall, trusting the bedframe to keep it from falling down to Liu’s bed. 
It usually did this quite well, and Liu had always respected Jeff’s privacy, but one day he had gone into the room and the sketchbook was lying open on his bed. On display was a dark, hastily hashed-in background with a grey, crudely sketched hand, positioned like it was shoving something away and out of the page. Where it met the sketchbook there was a line of paper, as if a page had been torn out. 
Liu had gently closed it, and quietly climbed up to Jeff’s bed, leaving it in its usual snugly hidden spot. Jeff never said anything to him about it, so Liu had figured that Jeff hadn’t noticed anything. 
“Quit staring at me.” Jeff had turned his head and caught Liu’s gaze. “I’m kinda working on something here.” 
“Yeah, yeah,” replied Liu, but he still hopped nimbly away from the bunk, landing squarely on one of the few clean patches of floor and settling into a crouch. As he stood up, stretching, he said, “Well, I’m probably gonna call it a night.”
Jeff scoffed. “Sure.”
Liu raised an eyebrow at this. “Well, since it’s nine-thirty?”
“Since when do you go to bed at nine thirty?”
“Uh…” Liu’s eyebrows furrowed. “Since pretty much always?”
Jeff snorted at that. “Yeah right, I’ve never seen you asleep before I am, and I’m usually awake till midnight.”
Liu shrugged. “Maybe you don’t pay attention to what goes on in the deep, hellish depths of The Lower Bunk.” He smiled slightly, and Jeff rolled his eyes. 
“Goodnight Jeff.”
“Yeah sure.”
Liu crawled onto his mattress, muscle memory allowing his fluffy brown hair to barely brush the bottom of Jeff’s bunk. It was a warm night, the first really humid night when spring turns into summer, so he just pulled the thin bedsheet over himself to keep out any drafts. 
He didn’t ask Jeff to turn out the lights, Liu never did. If Liu was honest with himself, he preferred the light to be on. He found it reassuring, and considering that he apparently still had night terrors it wasn’t the worst idea. At the least it meant that if one of their parents decided to try to reassure their shaking, wide-eyed, sometimes urine-soaked son, they wouldn’t have to try to navigate the room in the dark. He doubted they did anymore. After all, they were both busy people and since Liu never actually remembered the nightmares, he didn’t mind it much either way.
Of course, he’d never admit that he really rathered the light stay on all night, especially never to Jeff. What kind of fourteen-year old was still afraid of the dark? A silly one, that’s what. 
The old mattress creaked as Liu shifted, sighed, and closed his eyes.
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